I remember Elsayyab, screaming uselessly in the Gulf:
'Iraq, Iraq, there's only Iraq…'
Only an echo answered.
I remember Elsayyab, in the Sumerian vastness
the feminine overcame the infertility of mist
and bequeathed earth and exile together.
I remember Elsayyab, poetry is born in Iraq,
so be an Iraqi, my friend, if you want
to be a poet.
I remember Elsayyab, he didn't find life
as he imagined it between the Tigris and
the Euphrates, didn't contemplate the plant of immortality
like Gilgamesh, didn't think of resurrection…
I remember Elsayyab, taking laws from Hammurabi
to redeem a wrongful act and walking like a mystic
to his grave.
I remember Elsayyab, touched by fever
and hallucinating: 'My brothers prepared supper
for Hulagu's army, there were only my brothers
for servants…'
I remember Elsayyab, we didn't dream of nourishment
too good for a bee, didn't dream of more than two small hands
to shake our absence.
I remember Elsayyab, dead blacksmiths rose up from their graves
to make our chains.
I remember Elsayyab, poetry is an experiment
and an exile - twins -
we didn't dream of life other than it is, dreamed only
of dying our own way.
'Iraq, Iraq, there is only Iraq…'
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem