Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? (7 page)

(1967)

Your Honour!

I am not a soldier,

So what do you want from me?

What the court is talking about is no business of mine,

The past has swiftly gone into the past…

Without hearing a word from me.

The war has retired into the café for a rest…

And your airmen have returned safe

And the sky has broken in my language, Your Honour

– And this is my personal business –

But your subjects are dragging my sky behind them… delighted

And are overlooking my heart, and throwing banana skins

Down the well. They are passing quickly in front of me

And saying: Good evening, sometimes,

And coming into the courtyard of my house… quietly

And sleeping on the cloud of my sleep… securely

And speaking my very words,

In my stead,

To my window, and to the summer which sweats jasmine essence

And they re-dream my own dream,

In my stead,

And they weep with my eyes psalms of longing

And sing, as I sang to olive and fig

To the partial and the whole in the hidden meaning

And they live my life just as they please,

In my stead,

And they tread carefully on my name…

And I, Your Honour am here

In the hall of the past, a prisoner

The war is over. Your officers have come back safe

And the vines have spread in my language, Your

Honour – and this is my personal business – if

My cell hems me in, the Earth is wide,

But your subjects are angrily examining my words

And calling out to Akhab and Jezebel: Come on, inherit

Naboth’s rich orchard!

And they say: God is ours

And the Earth of God as well

And no one else’s!

What do you want, Your Honour,

From a passer-by among passers-by?

In a country where executioner asks

His victims to recommend him for medals!

Now is the time for me to cry out

And drop the mask of words:

This is a cell, Sir, not a court

And I am witness and judge. You are the prosecution

So leave the bench, and go: you are free I am free,

Prisoner judge

Your airmen have come back safe

And the sky has broken in my first language –

And this is my personal business – so that

Our dead return to us – safe!

They rang the curtain down

Leaving to us room to return to others

Defective. We went up to the cinema screen

Smiling, as we should be on

The cinema screen, and we improvised words already prepared

For us, regretting the last opportunity

For martyrs. Then we took a bow submitting

Our names to those who are walking on either side. And we returned

To our tomorrow, defective…

*

They rang the curtain down

They triumphed

They passed over all our yesterday,

They forgave

Their victim his sins when he apologised

Words that would come into his mind,

They changed Time's bell

And they triumphed…

*

When they brought us to the chapter before the last

We looked back: there was smoke

Towering up from time, white, over the gardens

Behind us. And the peacocks spread their fans

Of colour around Caesar's message to those who repented

Of the words which were worn out. For example:

The description of a freedom that cannot find its bread. The description

Of bread without the salt of freedom, or praise of a dove

Flying far from longing…

Caesar's message was like champagne to the smoke

Ascending from the balcony of Time

White…

*

They rang the curtain down

They triumphed

They photographed our skies to their heart's content

One star at a time

They photographed our days to their heart's content

One cloud at a time,

They changed Time's bell

And they triumphed…

*

We looked at our role on the coloured tape,

But could not find a star to the North or a tent

To the South. We did not recognise our voice, ever.

Our blood did not speak over the microphones on

That day, the day we leaned on a language

Which wasted its heart when it changed track. No one

Said to Imru' al-Qais: What have you done

With us and yourself? So go on

Caesar's road, after smoke rising black from Time. Go on Caesar's

Path, alone, alone, alone

And leave us, here, your language!

It was a rushing day. I listened to the water

Which the past took and passed quickly on,

Underneath,

I see myself split in two:

I,

And my name…

*

In order to dream I need nothing: a little

Sky for me to visit will suffice for me to see

Time light and friendly

Around the dovecotes

*

A little of God’s word to the trees

Is enough for me to build with expressions

A secure refuge

For the cranes that the hunter missed…

*

How much did my memory have to preserve

The names. How many mistakes did I make in the spelling

Of verbs. But this star is

My own making above the marble…

*

It was a rushing day. No one apologised

For anything. The clouds of tall trees

Did not fall on the street

And blood did not flash above words

*

All is quiet at the meeting of the two seas

Days have no data since today,

None dead and none alive. No truce,

No war on us or peace

*

And my life is in another place. It is unimportant

To describe a café and chat between two forsaken windows.

Or to describe an Autumn chewing

Mastic in this crowd

*

…And in order to dream I do not need

A large house. A little drowsiness of a wolf

In the forest suffices for me to see, above,

A sky for me to visit…

*

My life is in another place. It is not important

That Chingiz Khan’s daughter in her pants should see it

Or that a reader should see it entering into meaning

As ink in darkness

*

It was a rushing day. Tomorrow was passing

Coming from a tea party. Tomorrow we were!

And the Emperor was kind to us. We were

Tomorrow… witnessing the inauguration of the ruins…

*

Everything is quiet. It is not important

To describe blacksmiths who did not listen to

The tango, or the dead who sleep, as

They slept and did not apologise to Master History…

*

For me to dream, I do not need a night like this…

And a little sky for me to visit, will suffice

For me to see time light

And friendly,

And to sleep…

The enemy drinking tea in our hut

Has a horse in the smoke. And a daughter who has

Thick eyebrows. A pair of brown eyes. Hair

Long as a night of songs on her shoulders. Her picture

Does not leave him whenever he comes to us asking for tea. But he

Does not speak to us about her affairs in the evening, and about

A horse left by the songs on the top of the hill… /

*

…In our hut the enemy relaxes without the rifle,

He leaves it on Grandfather's chair. And he eats our bread

As would a guest. He dozes a little on

The bamboo seat. He strokes our cat's fur.

And he constantly says to us:

Don't blame the victim!

We ask him: Who is that?

And he says: Blood that the night does not dry… /

*

The buttons on his tunic shine as he leaves

Good evening and greet our well

And the fig trees. And tread gently on

Our shadow in the barley fields. Greet our cypress

On the heights. And do not leave the house door open

At night. Do not forget that

The horse is afraid of aeroplanes,

And greet us, there, when Time allows… /

*

These are the words we would have liked

To say at the door… he hears them very

Very well, and he hides it with a quick cough

And casts it aside.

Why does he visit the victim every evening?

And memorize our proverbs like us?

And repeat our very songs

About our very appointments in the holy place?

Were it not for the pistol, reed pipe would blend with reed pipe… /

*

…The war will not end so long as the earth

In us revolves around itself!

So let us be good. He asked us to be good here

And read poetry to Yeats's pilot:

I do not love those whom

I defend, as I do not hate

Those who are at war with me…

Then he comes out of our wooden hut,

And walks eighty metres to

Our house of stone there on the edge of plain… /

*

Greet our house, O stranger.

Our coffee cups

Are still as they were. Do you smell

Our fingers over them? Do you tell your daughter with

Her plait and thick eyebrows that they have

An absent owner,

Who wishes to visit them, for no reason…

But to enter their looking glass and see his secret:

How they were living his life after him

In his place? Greet them if time permits… /

*

These are the words that we would have liked

To say to him, he heard it very, very

Well,

And he hides it in a quick cough,

And casts it aside, then the buttons on his tunic

Shine as he goes away… Well,

And he hides it in a quick cough,

And casts it aside, then the buttons on his tunic

Shine as he goes away…