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The White Sheet...
(Tawṛiqt tacebḥant) I awoke early in the morning, And decided to write A virgin page awaited me What was I going to tell her? I was afraid of committing myself to her And that my intellect wouldn’t honour this meeting Perhaps she wishes herself a tree To lean against. The white page remains frozen The ink doesn’t want to blacken her. How can I describe A present that denies its past How can I describe A present denied in the past By midday I picked up my pencil again I scrutinised the sheet of paper and the guitar Was I going to write, to compose? But the strings did not want to vibrate To my hoped for melody The walls reverberated To the echo of my old songs The white page remains frozen The ink doesn’t want to blacken her. How can you express yourself When the sad pencil cries And on the once melodious guitar The strings vibrate with sad tears, crying That evening I returned To the same blank sheet awaiting me I looked in vain But the words abandoned me I called to them with my guitar But they spurned me The night dwelt on me A night announcing the long day before The white page remains frozen The ink doesn’t want to blacken her.. Why should I stay awake When the words no longer speak to me I struggle for that which carries me to sleep The words go against my reason But I believe I finally understand Why the situation is confused As soon as I want to write My reason scours the countryside Pulled by agonies Feeling something which it missed How to bear the pain of sick knowledge One of the fingers of the hand? The white page remains frozen The ink doesn’t want to blacken her. Deceived by time The words have deserted their meaning Time is deceptive So let us wait for better days I was going to go out, resigned That reason continued to ignore me But I turned again To contemplate this virgin page And I found arranged on it the words Of all that I have just described Resembling swallows Perched on a wire The white page is entwined Blackened by the ink When we do not know how to speak The poem makes us remember When we start to forget The poem will awaken us. Zixi England 18.12.2010 |
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