I Can'T Leave The Song Poem by Monzer Masri

(To Tuesday’s gossips)
*
The comparison between Lattakia
and Paris
will not be in favor of Paris!
Not because I am greedy
and there is no limit to my contentment
but because
as you say
to love...
is something
and to fall in love is
Something else.
\
When soil becomes more red
and trees with much riper fruits
If we look through
the window’s break
not from behind
the dimly glass.
Let it rain
and rain
and rain
our hope that the sky would dry up
two minutes away
when we will move down
checking the growth of pillars
and the ascending stairways
to upper floors
in the air.
\
Souvenir photos were taken for us
standing
with our muddy feet
on the trunks of palm trees
uprooted from their far-flung origins
and laid down here
like preys caught alive
snatched straight from traps
Wrapped in wet clothes still
ready to be raised
to save time
like natural columns
with crowns of fronds
in any garden
behind any fence.
...
Wonder what on earth
could we collect
if we climbed their long necks
and tore their earrings!
The city I was born in
and never left
equals - without any bias -
the city I didn’t set my foot in
I have never travelled to any of them.
Because tenderness is
something
and pity is
something else
even when they do nothing except
fill up that narrow space
in which waves were able
to submerge me up to my head,
starting by wetting the sole of my shoes
with heavenly blue water
if I take a little bit of
in the palms of my hands
I see it
blue
blue
however shallow it was.
The judgment will not be
in favor of Paris
or any other city
on the map of our dreams
because it looks like a secret word
Known only to those who
without asking them
are permitted to pass
beneath the arches of its
breasts.
where straight line is almost a miracle
for all what I see
leaned
and twisted
and slipped down
side by side with raindrops
plunging downwards
without finding an escape
on the surface of the glass- lake
that tries its utmost
to avoid me
their images
Nor their voices.
But
in their paleness
They fade away
and with every step
they look back
calling and pointing to me
to follow them.
I who how tightly closed the window
found myself
plastered to car's seat
deep down in my numbness
can not
Leave
the
song..
_________________________12/6/1998