Butterflies of Meaning - فراشات المعنى

Butterflies of Meaning

Translated from the Arabic by Mohamed Hassan & Laila neihoum

A poet's horizon

is filled with butterflies

that’s Afaf

and Sakina, sending

Her early morning messages

to my sleepy day,

Yussef the nonchalant

do worry at last

when doing the same

but Zeinab helped me

to decide :

clicking is the decision

then she flew

like a summer cloud

doing what she did!

what about Amal

clicking her cell phone

even in dreams

ringing makes her rush

a beautiful ebony running

with her soul in her mouth

Hello!

Lifting the phone The cell.

whatever is there?

listening a dreamy smile

lightning glows on her lips

this girl loves calling

knows her choices

but naughty Sakina

knows what to send me Knows what gets me to bounce

like on a trampoline

like grandchildren

bouncing on our grandma’s bed

"I am in Roxi," she says

God!

What a delicious mango juice

a Barbecue smell

smiley passers-by

in what engulfing happiness

am I!

deleting all redundant memories

am I!

and how the Nile goes by

opening its nocturnal maze

crowded with anchored restaurants,

Cafés. Pass them and me by

so I remember lovely colors,

enticing sea smells,

more than happy memories

and Sakina pulling my trembling hand

to cross Sallah Salem Street,

a Highway? No way,

Sakina! No way!

Now! or a flattened death!

Cross NOW!

shouts loudly over the noise.

I run, my eyes closed,

as well as my senses

to Cairo International Book Fair.

So she is in Roxi!

to my memories of colorful fish

Sharm al-sheikh shores

coral- decorated undersea

a small yacht

sailing on Tiran's horizon

passing a private light house

where I once climbed breathlessly

we wave

I see what others can’t see

I adjust my hat’s angle

straining my eyes

giving myself to the Red Sea breeze

to turquoise waters

to Ahmed's camera seizing the moment

so she is in Roxi

and Afaf’s butterflies

crowding around my thoughts' light

my thoughts that are traveling away

traveling away.

2-6-2004

ليلى النيهوم

[Roxi--a shopping street in Cairo]