Yahia Lababidi and Sheema Kalbasi
I have not found the key to myself
the one that will get the high gates
to swing wide open and the lights
to come on all at once
I have not found an ethos,
one that does not seek to impose
and expect but is alert and able
to breathe in all at once
When not denied entrance entirely
I fumble in the dark and stumble
blindly, run into doors and walls,
groping and hoping
A place where everything
does not hoard a secret and hope
is not false reaching, grief neither
furtive nor triumphing
I knock my head against false ceilings
and trip on traps I forgot to dismantle,
then start at the sight of my reflection
bumping into my selves.
Yahia Lababidi is the author of Signposts to Elsewhere [1] and the only contemporary Arab author in encyclopedia of World's Great Aphorists. In her testimonial Naomi Shihab Nye writes: “Signposts to Elsewhere is a succulent, stunning collection of images and thoughts more well-lit than the old swinging torches of the lamplighters. I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight. If Yahia Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there.” Lababidi’s latest can be ordered here [2].
Sheema Kalbasi is the translator and editor of Seven Valleys of Love, a bilingual anthology of women poets from Middle-Age Persia to present day Iran. Visit howitgoesnaked.blogspot.com [3]
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Women on the Frontline | 13 | Mar 08, 2011 |
اجرای حکم ناعادلانۀ حبیبالله لطیفی را متوقف کنید! | 4 | Dec 25, 2010 |
Links:
[1] //www.janestreet.com/press
[2] //www.janestreet.com/press/
[3] //www.howitgoesnaked.blogspot.com/