Your Night Is of Lilac
The night sits wherever you are. Your night
is of lilac. Every now and then a gesture escapes
from the beam of your dimples, breaks the wineglass
and lights up the starlight. And your night is your shadow—
a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams
equal. I am not a traveler or a dweller
in your lilac night, I am he who was one day
me. Whenever night grew in you I guessed
the heart’s rank between two grades: neither
the self accepts, nor the soul accepts. But in our bodies
a heaven and an earth embrace. And all of you
is your night … radiant night like planet ink. Night
is the covenant of night, crawling in my body
anesthetized like a fox’s sleepiness. Night diffusing a mystery
that illuminates my language, whenever it is clearer
I become more fearful of a tomorrow in the fist. Night
staring at itself safe and assured in its
endlessness, nothing celebrates it except its mirror
and the ancient shepherd songs in a summer of emperors
who get sick on love. Night that flourished in its Jahili poetry
on the whims of Imru’ el-Qyss and others,
and widened for the dreamers the milk path to a hungry
moon in the remoteness of speech …
–Mahmoud Darwish, “Your Night is of Lilac” from The Butterfly’s Burden. Copyright © 2008 by Mahmoud Darwish, English translation by Fady Joudah. Copper Canyon Press.
Art Credit: Elizabeth Tremante, Lilacs at Night, 60" x 60" oil on canvas
Notes
- wheres-my-second-breakfast liked this
- bluevoir liked this
- cdnsongbirdme liked this
- poetryandbluebells liked this
- leeeeenn-blog liked this
- ludmila199 liked this
- nourhanexo-blog liked this
- cycledays liked this
- qalbifalastin liked this
- hn-1973 liked this
- juliel71 reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
- juliel71 liked this
- ohheyitsjonesy liked this
- jadebrocade reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
- terracemuse liked this
- myblueirony reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
- ripplefactor liked this
- batvalentinworld liked this
- exuuviae liked this
- art-seeker-seeks-art liked this
- empathy-vs-apathy-nyc reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
- jacquesweed liked this
- detroitlib liked this
- amaryllisblackthorn liked this
- heatherberg reblogged this from crashinglybeautiful
- sovietgoner liked this
- antunescamargo liked this
- valeriefigone liked this
- lolaziggy liked this
- cosmicub liked this
- marykru liked this
- myfavoritethingssalways liked this
- yesyes liked this
- jbisset liked this
- thewhitesky reblogged this from journalofanobody
- awindfallofwhims reblogged this from journalofanobody
- crashinglybeautiful posted this
- Show more notes