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A VISITATION BY MUHAMMAD � AF � F � MATAR* Formed clay from clay and in my blood focused all qualities of living dust: the simmering of mud, the ferment of slow creation, clay fired in white heat transmuting, dust scattering in the freedom of the dream, rosary of chaos splaying outwards into beads, hard steel becoming heart of sapphires, heart of stone. I am seized by feverish ecstasy, beasts sprung from wild birds snatching me up, bearing me off, from whose craws I survey the sorrows of Beingl and of the wide earth, wings beating as they rise, fluttering as they descend. Your door, a spherical arc, 0 my father, your latch is clay, your lock is the snare and the trap, while darkness falls on tombstones, birds sleep on the cactus covering your grave. Their voice, the strife of the wide horizon, the vision of blood and sleep calls in secret from your dust, and from my dust, the words of rebellion. The dawn wakes and hangs from the stars of the poem, as I set the sun moving in its blaze of greenness, the sun that rusted on the locks of your door, 0 my father. I called during the rite of visitation: how have the times of dust befallen? How will descendants of my dust be formed! I called and the dawn glittered under crow's wing, wild birds take flight, from their perches moist with memories, to lofty voyages for clear vision of earth and blood, starting at your door of clay, ending where my voice resounds. * This poem is by the Egyptian poet, Muhammad � Af � f � Matar (1935- ), in which he describes a visit to his father's grave. It appeared in the Palestinian journal, Al-Karmel 14 (1984), 312. Al-Karmel is a cultural quarterly published by the Union of Palestinian Writers. 1 I have followed the poet's suggestion to translate malak � t: "Being".
Journal of Arabic Literature – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1989
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