The Messenger With Her Hair Poem by Ounsi El Hage

The messenger with her hair
long to the springs
***
This is the story of the other side of creation
I discovered it, my eyes obscured
The path, my beloved,
Leads from her awaiting me
Leads from my return to her
This is the story of the other side of creation
Listen
Do not shoot the doors
The breakers bear the message to the wind
The wind to the trees
The trees to notebooks.
You, old men with homes, and you, young boys of the streets
Sit this very night in the presence of the lover.
You, who hurry about, did you really leave only to return?
Shatter the night for an instant
Come, gather round the one to testify.
Pray, my love, that I spread a feast, befitting their appetite.
Birds of the harvest season soar past
But your light does not recede, its hand before me still.
I am the collector of your echo's traces
Read me before they know me, then I will arrive early at the heart
This, in my twisted language, in your vision
This, in my thieving hands, is your treasure
This, from my row boat, is your sea, so watch over your sea from my boat, your eyes the sails that protect me
You, who change life with crushing ignorance
You are the dependable one
You change life, effortless
With the nakedness of purity, to its passion alone do secrets yield
This is your story
The story of the other side of creation
Enable me, God
To reflect on my sin
And for the sake of all my fathers
To suffer their remorse and repentance and then collapse
At my loved one's feet.
Beloved,
Time of justice ripens in you, may the feast begin
All of life kneels at your feet in me
I am for you all of time's penitence distilled in one body prostrate before you life's obedient tenure,
I wash your door step with all creation's tears.
I am the devil proffering his soul
Tenderness has triumphed over me
The clouds have swollen behind the locks and the sky's curtainsare rent apart
The rain yields to the earth
Tenderness triumphed over me, my beloved loved me
My love hauled me up from the bottom of the sea and I saw creation enacted from the beginning
My loved drew me into the light like a prophet at the crossing of road
My beloved lodged me at the source
Joined me and filled me with her presence.
I am your head, then you, loved one, are the halo around mine
I am your head and you the crown on mine
I am the exodus and the return between your two moons
Your love welcomed me in doubt and in conviction
Took me in, rescued me
Freed me from the ubsurd struggle and poured me the wedding wine
It purified me and recreated me
Extinguished what was ablaze and ignited what was ashes
An eternal flame
Your love told me of my identity, one born of you,
The whisper of the lingering echo among the people Bellowed into nations, crashing like cymbals
Ringing like tambourines in your hands:
Halleluiah!
Virtues were circling around me like vanquished clouds
I was speaking an honest language so as to recruit thieves and reduce time, disrobing it of fear
I was foul vinegar in my body.
But I speak one word of yours and perfume alone is distilled
I was addressing love while my door was slammed shut in its face
Addressing it, while my arms embraced a language
Through you I became love, I burned my mouth and so love's vivid dawn issued forth
Instead of language I became tears
For tears are to God's grace as waves to an island.
Once my army is a mighty giant and my land was vanquished
Now my army is destroyed by life's harmony my land a sprawling giant
I lay down my tears, a sturdy bridge across the abyss.
Her hunter is falling
The white sparrow prays for him and he is saved,
The overpowering one flogs her and she asks about the illness whish consumes him as though it is he who is the victim
He the invader, she at peace
He desperate, she at peace
He tyrannical, she at peace
For she is earth and earth is sky, and the assailants fleeting clouds.
Who is she whose praises I sing?
I say 'she' but mean you
I heap them all on you because you stand alone
They are meaningless except for you.
My beloved, I saw the sun beneath her eyes a moon in a river beneath the willow tree
Mad woman, because she is queen the poor grovel for her affection
Mad woman, because she is consummate beauty and completely complete
In nature beyond nature, she dismounts amidst the debris to take pity on me
The woman, the one, the Almighty
Lost to me since paradise
The pearl polished my the blows of ongoing generations
Shrouded in perfection she came into the world, Chosen, unblemished
The perfect choice her wedding dowry unequalled
She is the one to whom I come contrite, with the conscience of all men
Confessing their sins to all women since time's beginning
Because she is the heiress of splendour, imprisoned in the vaults of the two testaments
Because she is the messenger with her hair long to the springs.
I am knocking, knocking, knocking, open up and erase all that was before
Let the storyteller tell and the sceptic listen
The enchantress is white, there are no black enchantresses
The forest plagued by the lion, delights in the butterfly
It is green because the butterfly is green, its reflection, the forest.
Of your lips
And at your robe's them draped over a pedestal, I saw the other side
I saw it
O loved one
In your accepting my love I saw giving.
And about you I saw the word, a halo.
I learned from you the sweetness of the moment and the good in people.
You stay up the night in me like a prisner in the tower, she lights it with her freedom then flying through the windows becomes a wind in the garden
You stay up the night in me like the flame in the lamp,
Like providence you watch over the traveller.
You found me among mire and thorns, took in the fugitive
And he became radiant.
She is beyond all praise who gives refuge as she does
My image bears fruit in her body
He is a fool who boasts and struts in ignorance as I do
What good is brute strength
When everything is so simple and beautiful
Because you say: I love you
Everything smiles at me
Because you watch over me
I am at peace
Because you suffer life's tension
I am at peace
Because you issue forth nothing but harmony.
Your body enlivens the spirit and your spirit gives life
You act out your jealousy, strong so the unsure one is placated
You act out your jealousy, weak, so I walk, a master, carrying the keys
Your conceal jealousy, so I think you ignorant.
You know and remain pure
Your jealousy is the jealousy of a queen
And your power to set free is the power of a queen
The opening of your two lips is a feast
Your lips, the master's wine
Your mouth is ruddy with the sun of your brow
The kindling sings in the fire because your ears are the crowning
My hand is to you one hand, yours a league of hands
You stripped the shade from the tree of remorse
Winter purged me of my sorrow and summer scorched it.
As small as a speck of gold
You dispel black magic
You are one to be savoured, gentle, your hands entwined with love
And every word you speak grows thick with rain
In the body of winds.
As light as ostrich feathers you do not call me forward,
But whatever, with every minute, I come across you, i rush to you after a long absence
So simple, you dazzle wisdom
The world beneath your gaze, is wheat stalks and trees of water
Life quivers alive, the skies above cargoes overflowing with gifts
You are my gift, O God, add my years to hers
Loved one, you are the other side of creation
Loved one, you are truth
In you is my inspiration and wisdom
In you my rapture
In you ecstasy and shelter
You are the reunion of our two bodies, one body at peace with the elements
I am your head but you the halo around it
You do not teach me as men do nor use your power against me
But you are like the virgin Mary in your silence
So I obey you, my sin surrendering to your humility.
I learn from you yet you do not teach
How is it that the one invincible with love spares the life of her murderers
How is it that the lighthouse is small and the darkness vast
And how is it that the small one pervades it
How is it that the one possessed of kindness is mighty, uncomplaining,
And how is that God gave her fear for us
And left fright to the self-deceivers.
O lord
Protect my loved one
O lord, who said to woman: mother
Protect my beloved
O master, Lord of hosts, hosts of dreams
Protect, O master, my beloved
Clear the path before her
Watch over her days
Ripple her fields with pastures of fancy
Make for her every night
The eve of the feast
O lord, God of those who arrange for reunion, the other side of the guarded bridge
O lord, master of seals, contracts, and sighs
Seeking from you their sustenance,
I asked you for blessing for my beloved
They seek from you a place to rest but there is no place of rest except my beloved
My beach, the shores of her sea and her sea a sanctuary
People go to their work while I because of her love go to you
Have pity, O lord, she led me to you
You at the forefront of my prayer's possesion
Bless her more than I ask you
So that your gift a flood, swells hope.
She led me to you
She speaks so I say glory to you
She acts and so your river flow in my wasteland
She looks and so I see you
She acts and so I reflect on your miracles
To them earth ends where sea begins
For me land ends beside her feet.
She led me to you and I confessed because she made me dizzy with truth as though drunk
She led me to you for the sake of my soul,
So is it not little no matter how much I ask you?
Until she becomes a gnarled grandmother like the oldest olive tree,
Prolong her days, O lord
And forever renew her land
I believe therefore I ask it
I ask and because of that I believe
My belief stems from her, O lord
Preserve her, bless her
She shines and so I am illumined by you.
I sing you, my beloved
So I may touch their lives with but a trace of your touch on my life
So I may immerse them in the heart-illumining secrets
And in the secrets-illumining heart,
With but a flicker of the light
You shine on my own heart and secrets
So that I be with them in the morning's awakening a fraction of what you are to me:
A rain of stars
And a sun of wells
Rays piercing me through church glass
Two healing hands.
Begin the feast and sing along with the lover
I embrace you, beloved, from all sides
For you surround me
I asked them to the feast but wish I had not
Who when you appear would not cry 'Ah'
Am I really strong and virtuous therefore able to bear jealousy's weight?
The mountain is a lighter burden than desire, and the earth smaller than jalousy.
Show me a twilight that longs to plunge into night more than I long for you
Show me a mirror that yearns to reflect you more than I yearn for you
Show me a desert that longs for its prophets more than I long for you
Show me a cry for help that yearns for hands outstretched more than I yearn for you
And I am jealous
I feign composure while jealousy's winds sweep me away like dust
I guard over you fearful, proud and backward
I guard over you capable, despicable
My misary is overwhelming yet there is no end to why I guard over you so
Can it end as long as I see
Can the world, the people, and my love end?
And will I be jealous of my own eyes
For whom do you see in them that I do not?
If I were to be true I would have hidden them, sat alone
So that people would long for your fields in my eyes.
But where can I hide and who am I deceiving?
Ah, why am I not supreme master of my eyes!
The stallion of my jealousy runs away with me, his shadow before him, urging him on
You, truth, be strangled
Why do you sweep me away while the prowlers are around me?
Be patient
Do not leave me in the open so they may rob me
Do not bare my jealousy that they may master my love
Help me to hold it in
Help me
So the masked tyrant in me is not exposed
So that my loved one does not know what dwells inside her slave
Who feigns humility
The greedy one
Torn apart by his drive to dominate
Lest she know
That the one who damns his hangmen fathers, the one who claims himself redeemed from the sin of possession
His heart is still two hearts
The legacy of jealousy tied around his neck
His, a soul which diffuses light yet is murky.
Help me o truth
Be gentle with me
Until I am worthy of her
Until I kiss my jealousy on the head of its untamed steed, and fulfilling my vows
I unfasten legacy's necklace
Then I will no longer torture my beloved with presumption
Because I will be a slave with one heart free without breaking away
A slave to her happiness
With one heart
Heart of a slave who waits on her with freemen's heart.
The enchantress
Believes herself bewitched
By her love's spell cast over me
I am she
We smother the fire encircling the house
Where we love sleeps
Smother the fire ringing the earth
Where our baby sleeps
There where in the middle of everything
Our love's branch
Sprouting forests and rivers
Leafing happiness
Bursting into freedom
Bread's blossoms
And blossom's bread
Our love's branch
Reaches up to you, O God
From the bottom of the wounded river
Bearing the whole world
A fruit
Washed by the thorn of repentance
It brings it to you with joy
And the river is laughter
And laughter the colour of a rose.
Beloved
I swear to be your plaything, your captive
I swear to deserve your star on my shoulder
I swear to hear the call of your eyes in order to resist the wisdom of your lips
I swear to forget my poems in order to commit you to memory
I swear to run after my love and swear it will continue to outstrip me
I swear to fade out for the sake of your happiness like stars at day
I swear to house my tears in your hand
I swear to be the distance between I love you and I love you
I swear to hurl my body for eternity to the lions of your discontent
I swear to be your cage's open door faithful to night's promises
I swear that my waiting room will be jealousy, my entering it, obedience, my staying there complete extinction
I swear to become prey for your shadow
I swear to long forever to be a book open on your lap
I swear to be the world's rupture between you and you that I may be in you its solitude
I swear to call out for you so happiness will answer the call
I swear to harbour my country in my love for you and, the world in my country
I swear to love you without knowing how much
I swear to talk beside you and share with you this one friend
I swear that my years swarm by, bees from the hive of your voice
I swear to fall from the lightning of your hair, rain on the field
I swear whenever I come across my heart between the lines, I shall rejoice: I found you! I found you!
I swear to look down from Asia's peaks, so as to worship you.
O night, night
Carry up my prayer
Hear me O Lord
Plant my beloved and do not uproot her
Enrich her with years unborn
Fortify her with my coming years
Keep her leaves green
Let no wind diffuse her scent
Keep her tent pitched high for in its heights is a sparrow's paradise
Grant her the life of the cedar so her grandsons may parade, beneath her healing hands
Grant her the life of the cedar so her miracle may transcend distant borders
Grant her the life of the cedar so that many nations submit to her, as my repentance did
Keep her doors open that hope is not strandedat night in the outdoors
Offer her up to the winter years so she gathers what broke away
Watch closely the stars in her eyes, deep in there is birth.
And behold there is rain
The chimneys stand tall to receive the coming.
It rains from a kiss.
The sky looms up
The youthful earth is budding life
The provisions grow high
Listen to the rhythm of the harvest season
The divided kingdom is united
Its crown is love, the kingdom's peace.
The impossible, a way of life.
It rains from a kiss
Exile collapses
Let the dust of exile grow thick
Come forth
From despair's depths and the icy heights
From desire's ruins and the ashes of patience
Come forth
Become me as I become you
I am your transparency
I am he who failed and saved you both.
My beloved unearthed the lost one
Pointed the way to the missing one
The messenger conquered with sweetness
With compassion she conquered armies
She bears witness, disclosing the return.
Come forth
The kingdom is open
Flocks of songbirds at the kingdom's gate, flutter forth in welcome
At a kiss'throw you stand from the gate
The treasures stand alone
Earth is lonely
Life is lonely
Come forth
Enter, your head garlanded with gold
Burn all behind you
All behind you
Set the world ablaze with the sun of returning.

Translated by Brandel France,