(وأنتَ تغادرُ غرفةً مشمسة ناداك صوتٌ "ابقَ")

بيتُ العنكبوت
      في الزاويةِ اليمنى لنافذة الشمال
              لم تزحزحْهُ الريح-
            بيتٌ أسود يدمغ نافذتك كباقي الختْمِ على طابعِ رسالةٍ
                                   رُدَّت إلى صاحبها ولم تُفْتَحْ-
انتبهتَ حين مسحتَ البصماتِ وغبارَ الأيام عن النظّارة
                    بقطعةٍ من خِمارِ جدّتك،
        وأزحتَ ستارةً من الغصون والأوراق:
                      موحلاً لا يزالُ طريقُكَ الضيق.
لا يلذُّ لك البرد.
    لولا هذه الأيام، قلتَ،
         ما حياتي التي يربِكها الربيع
          إلا سحابةٌ هطلتْ عليّ وحدي
             وبدّلتْ لونَ تلك التلة-
                         من فستقيٍّ يرفرفُ على قبرِ جدّي
                                       إلى السماويّ في عينيّ ابنتي.

© Golan Haji
Audio production: Haus für Poesie, 2019

While Leaving A Sunny Room A Voice Called Saying : “Stay”

The spider’s house
            In the right angle of the northern window
            Has not been touched by the wind –
                        A black house imprinted on your window like traces
                                   Of a seal on the stamp of a letter
                                               Returned unopened to the sender –
You noticed it when you cleansed your eyeglasses of fingerprints & the dust of days
            With a piece of your grandmother’s headscarf,
                        And pulled back a curtain of branches and leaves :
                                   Your narrow road still is muddy.

You don’t savour the cold.
Were it not for these days, you said,
            My life that’s been confused by spring
                        Would be a cloud that rained only on me 
                                   And changed the colours of that hill :
                                   From pistachio-green fluttering above my grandfather’s grave
                                               To the sky-blue of my daughter’s eyes.

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