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Golan Haji

شجرةٌ لا أعرف اسمها

  • 1 هِلال | Translations: deenfr
  • 2 شجرةٌ لا أعرف اسمها | Translations: deen
  • 3 نهاية الأيام | Translations: deen
  • 4 (فقّاعة) | Translations: en
  • 5 بيت آخر | Translations: enfr
  • 6 قَبْليْ | Translations: enfr
  • 7 ضوء آذار | Translations: enfr
  • 8 *** [العصفورُ الذي رفرفَ عن سلكِ] | Translations: en
  • 9 أعشاش فارغة | Translations: en
  • 10 الابن الثامن | Translations: enfr
  • 11 (وأنتَ تغادرُ غرفةً مشمسة ناداك صوتٌ "ابقَ") | Translations: en
  • 12 المسيح العجوز | Translations: en
  • 13 (بئر في مقبرة بعيدة) | Translations: en
  • 14 (المتلصّص) | Translations: enfr
  • 15 يقظات الرابعة فجراً
Language: arabic
Translations: german (Ein Baum, ich kenne seinen Namen nicht), english (A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know)
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شجرةٌ لا أعرف اسمها


لا جرس يرنُّ ولا أحد يأتي.
حيث حبستُ نفسي، وضيّعتُ المفتاح،
     كم مِن الأيام انقضى
       وما راسلني أحدٌ ولا هاتفني.
        ما راسلتُ ولا هاتفتُ أحداً.
أنا الذي عذّبتْهُ الكلمات وضمّدتْه وأذْبَلتْه،
أكلّمكِ يا شجرةً لا أعرفُ اسمها:
    سيّانِ جوعي وعطشي
       ما دمتُ أرضعُ حنانَ صمتك.

جئتُكِ وحدي لأجلس تحت واسعِ رحمتك؛
صغيرٌ أنا: تلدني زهرةٌ في بياض النسيان،
           وتكفّنني زهرةٌ وتشيّعني النسمة؛
لا ألاطفُ الفتيات ولا يلاطفنني،
ومثلُك لا أعرفُ اسمي.
فقيرةٌ كلماتي،
      تعلو وتهبط كفُواق رضيع
       في ضبابِ لغة أخرى،
وجلدي يكلّمك:
    بألف فمٍ صغير يشربُ معك ضوءَ الشمس-
شمسَ أجدادي الذين شابوا
     في طفولاتهم لمّا عبَروا الرعب
       وأفزعهم انتقامُ الثعابين الجريحة؛
 ما درى أحدٌ كم سيطولُ الفزع
              وإلى متى ستسبحُ الثعابينُ في مياهِ المنامات
    حتى رقَّ القساة، وابيضّتِ الغُرَرُ والأفواد.

شاخَ جدّي في شبابه؛
شلّته طلقةٌ طائشة فداووه بالألم:
      ساكناً، عارياً،
     وسّدوه بساطاً من شعرِ الماعز،
      أقفلوا البابَ والشبّاكين على ترابِ غرفته
          وأفلتوا الدبابير؛
في بيته، أبيضَ تحت شمس نيسان،
      انتظر رجوعَ الخطواتِ إلى قدميه.

مثله، مثلك، يطولُ انتظاري،
والوقتُ الميت أخصبُ ساعاتي:
    تُراهم سعداء المسنُّون في هذه البلاد التي جئتُها ضيفاً؟
السعادةُ هنا بيضاء كالشيخوخة؛
أرى الخائفين يغضبون ويصرخون
    ووراء حدقتيّ الداكنتين
        إلهان يذبحان سجيناً نائماً
يا شجرةً لا أعرف اسمها:
    كلُّ زهرةٍ ترتجفُ أمَلٌ أتى،   
على تاجِ شَيبي اسّاقطتْ تويجاتك،
     ولفرط ما انتظرتُ ابيضّتْ جذوري
             كشعرِ أمي في سوادِ السنين؛
صامتاً أكلّمُك-
أنا مَن صار خوفهُ حزناً،
وأنتِ مَن روَّعكِ الجمال فأزهرتِ.

© Golan Haji
Audio production: Haus für Poesie, 2019
Categories: family, death & grief, plants

Translations:

Language: german

Ein Baum, ich kenne seinen Namen nicht

Keine Glocke schellt und niemand kommt.       
Wie viele Tage sind vergangen
                ohne Nachricht und Anruf
                               dort, wo ich mich einschloss und den Schlüssel verlor;
                                               und auch ich schrieb niemandem, rief niemanden an.
Ich, den die Worte verwundeten, verbanden und welken ließen
ich spreche zu dir, Baum, dessen Namen ich nicht kenne:
                Mein Hunger und mein Durst sind ohne Bedeutung                                    
                               seit mich dein stilles Schweigen säugt.

Ich kam allein zu dir, um unter deiner weiten Gnade zu sitzen;
ich bin klein: Eine Blüte bringt mich zur Welt in weißes Vergessen
                                               eine Blüte hüllt mich in ein Grabtuch, die Brise bestattet mich;
ich schmeichle keinen Mädchen, noch schmeicheln sie mir
und wie du kenne ich meinen Namen nicht.
Meine Worte sind arm –
                sie steigen und sinken wie der Schluckauf eines Säuglings
                               im Nebel einer anderen Sprache
und meine Haut spricht zu dir:
Mit Tausend kleinen Mündern trinkt sie das Licht der Sonne mit dir –
                die Sonne meiner Vorfahren, deren Haare
                               in ihrer Kindheit ergrauten, als sie in Panik verfielen
                                               entsetzt von der Rache der verletzten Schlangen;
niemand wusste, wie lange der Schrecken dauern würde
                und die Schlangen im Wasser der Träume schwämmen –
bis die Harten sanft wurden und ihr Schläfenhaar weiß.

Mein Großvater alterte jung;
eine irrgehende Kugel lähmte ihn, nur der Schmerz konnte ihn heilen:
                                               Sie betteten ihn auf einen Teppich
                                                               reglos und nackt
                                               verriegelten Fenster und Tür zu seinem Zimmer aus Lehm
                                                                              und ließen die Wespen frei;
in seinem Haus, weiß unter der Aprilsonne
                wartete er auf die Rückkehr der Schritte in seine Füße.

Wie seins, wie deins, so lange dauert mein Warten
die leblosen Stunden sind fruchtbar:
Sind sie glücklich, die Alten dieses Landes, in das ich als Gast kam?
Hier ist das Glück so weiß wie das Alter;
ich sehe die Ängstlichen toben und schreien
                und hinter meinen dunklen Pupillen
                               schlachten zwei Götter einen Gefangenen, der schläft.

Baum, dessen Namen ich nicht kenne:
                               Jede zitternde Blume ist die Ankunft einer Hoffnung
                               auf meine weiße Haarkrone schwebten deine Blütenblätter
                               und meine Wurzeln wurden weiß vom langen Warten
                                               wie das Haar meiner Mutter in den finsteren Jahren;
ich spreche still zu dir –
                ich, dessen Angst zur Trauer wurde
                und du, dessen Schönheit dich ängstigte, bis du erblühtest.

Deutsche Fassung von Sonja vom Brocke.
Die Übersetzung entstand während des Übersetzungsworkshops 'Nahost trifft Europa' im Rahmen des poesiefestival berlin 2019.
Language: english

A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know

No bell rings & no-one comes.
How many days have passed
            Without message or phone call
                        Where I locked myself in & lost the key.
                                   And I too sent no message & phoned no-one.
I who am tormented, bandaged & wilted by words
I talk to you, tree whose name I don’t know :          
            neither my hunger nor my thirst matter
                        since I’ve sucked on the tenderness of your silence.

Alone I’ve come to you, to sit beneath your vast mercy;
I am small : a blossom begets me in white oblivion,
                        a blossom shrouds me, the breeze follows my funeral;
I don’t caress girls nor do they caress me,
And like you I don’t know my name.
Poor are my words –
            that rise & fall like the hiccups of a babe-in-arms –
                        in the haze of another language,
And my skin talks to you :
With a thousand small mouths it drinks sunlight with you –
            The sun of my ancestors whose hair turned white
                        In their childhoods when they panicked, 
                                   Terrified by the revenge of wounded serpents; 
Nobody knew how long the horror would last
            Or until when the serpents would keep swimming in the waters of dream
Until the harsh became tender and the hair at their temples
whitened.

My grandfather aged in his youth;
Paralysed by a stray bullet, treatable only by pain :
            They laid him down on a rug of goat’s hair,
                        Motionless & naked,
            They locked the door & windows to his clay chamber
                        & released the wasps;
In his house, white beneath the April sun,
            He waited for quickening pace to return to his feet.

Like him, like you, my waiting has been for too long –
Dead hours are my most fertile : 
Are they happy, the old people of this country I came to
as a guest ?
Happiness here is as white as old age;
I see the fearful – infuriated & shouting – 
            And behind my dark eyes 
                        Two gods are slaying a sleeping prisoner.
O tree whose name I don’t know :
            Each trembling blossom is hope arrived,
            Your petals have fallen on the crown of my white hair,
            And for this long waiting my roots have turned white
                        Like my mother’s hair in the dark years; 
Silently I talk to you –
            I whose fear has become sadness
            And you who beauty startled into blossom.

Translated from Arabic by Golan Haji & Stephen Watts
published in Modern Poetry in Translation, 2017
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Golan Haji

photo © Marti-Albesa
* 10.11.1977, Amouda, Syria
lives in: Paris, France

Golan Haji is a Syrian-Kurdish poet, essayist and translator with a postgraduate degree in pathology. He was born in 1977 in Amouda, a Kurdish town in the northeast of Syria. He studied medicine at the University of Damascus.

He now lives in Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris. He has published four books of poems in Arabic: He Called Out Within The Darknesses (2004), Someone Sees You as a Monster (2008), Autumn, Here, is Magical and Vast (2013), Scale of Injury (2016). His translations from English and French include (among others) books by Mark Strand, Robert Louis Stevenson and Alberto Manguel. He also published Until The War, 2016, a book of prose based on interviews with Syrian women.

 photo © Marti-Albesa
Publications
  • He Called Out Within The Darknesses

    [book of poems in Arabic]

    2004

  • Someone Sees You as a Monster

    [book of poems in Arabic]

    2008

  • Adulterers

    Translated into Danish by the Danish poet Jesper Berg

    Copenhagen: Forlaget Korridor, 2011

  • بيتي البارد البائد

    [My Cold Faraway Home]

    Beirut: Dar-al Jamal, 2012

  • Autumn, Here, is Magical and Vast

    bilingual edition Arabic-Italian

    Rome: Il Sirente, 2013

  • Until The War

    (prose)

    collaboration with Estayqazat, a Syrian feminist movement - based on interviews with Syrian women

    Beirut: Riad El-Rayyes, 2016

  • Alberto Manguel - A Reader on Reading

    Translated by Golan Haji

    Beirut: Dar Al- Saqi, 2016

  • Scale of Injury

    [book of poems in Arabic]

    Milan: Al-Mutawassit, 2016

  • A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know

    Translated by Stephen Watts & Golan Haji

    New York: A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2017

Awards
  • 2004 Mohammad Al-Maghout prize

  • 2019 Faber Residency

Links
  • A Note on Syrian Poetry Today

    Golan Haji for Words without Borders

    Website
  • On Dispersal and Translation: Golan Haji's “A Tree Whose Name I Don't Know”

    Translations Reviewed by Translators

    Website
  • Golan Haji: ‘It’s Not Easy To Go for What One Loves'

    Interview

    Website
  • poem by Golan Haji: Autumn Here is Magical and Vast

    Translated from Arabic by Stephen Watts

    Website
  • poem by Golan Haji: A Light In Water

    Translated from Arabic by Stephen Watts

    Website
  • Two Poems by Fady Joudah and Golan Haji @ World Literature Today

    works of a collaboration

    Website

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