A Strange Moon Above The Flute Maker Poem by Khaled Juma

'Await not that I play for you…'
Says the flute maker to the strange moon,
'I am but a flute maker'
*
In coffins
No tears are there
Tears stop right before caskets
*
If I were a disaster, I'd dwell in a book not a land.
If I were a country, I'd delay my dwellers forever.
If I were a woman, I'd clear the place of its cruelty.
If I were a gun, I'd retire, empty, to a museum.
If I were a guitar, the world would never know silence.
If I were colors, not one person would remain blind.
If I were a planet, I'd be filled with air and rivers, and I'd make a stairway for dreamers.
But I am none of these…
I sit in solitude, writing such a hallucination.
If were another…
I would not be alone.
*
Someday, when I turn into silver
I mean, after naught takes back its debt
And prayers take their own
Do leave me, there, between rock cracks
Do not make a necklace or a ring out of me
The demon that dwells in me
Shall bite you
And you shall never know why.

Translated from Arabic by Nida Awine