INANNA’S MILK 

For you the twins: for you poetry and prose unite, as you

fly from one epoch to another, safe and sound

on a howdah made of your murdered victims’ planets — your kind guards

who carry your seven heavens one caravan at a time.

And between the palm trees and your hands’ two rivers, your horse-keepers approach

the water: The first goddess is the one most filled

with us. And an infatuated creator contemplates his work, becomes mad

with her and longs for her: Shall I make again what I did before?

And the scribes of your lightning burn in the sky’s ink, and their offspring

strew the swallows over the Sumerian woman’s parade . . .

be she ascending, or descending

For you, the one stretched out in the hall

in the forest shirt, and the ashen

pants, not for your metaphor, I awaken

my wilderness, and I say to myself: A moon

will rise from my darkness . . .

Let the water flow down from the Sumerian horizon

upon us, as in the myths. If my heart

is as straight as this glass surrounding us

then fill it up with your clouds until it returns to its folk

overcast and dreamy like a poor man’s prayer. And if my heart

is wounded, don’t stab it with a gazelle’s horn,

there are no natural flowers left around the Euphrates

for my blood to incarnate in the anemones after the wars.

And there isn’t a jar for the wine of the goddesses left in my temple,

in Sumer the eternal, in Sumer the ephemeral

For you, the slender one in the hall

with the silken hands

and the frolicking waist,

not for your symbols,

I awaken my wilderness and say:

I will draw this gazelle out of her flock

and stab myself . . . with it!

I don’t want a song to be your bed,

so let the Bull, Iraq’s winged Bull, burnish

his horns with the ages on the fissured altar

in the silver of dawn. And let death carry its metal

instrument amid the ancient choir

of Nebuchadnezzar’s sun. As for me, the descendant

from without this time, I must have

a suitable horse for this procession. And if

there must be a moon let it be high . . . high

and made in Baghdad, not Arabic or Persian

and not claimed by any of the gods around us. And let it be empty

of memories and of ancient kings’ wine,

for us to complete this holy procession, together, you daughter

of the eternal moon, in this place that your hands brought down

to the edge of the earth from the balcony of the fading paradise! . . .

For you, the one reading

the newspaper in the hall,

the one sick with influenza

I say: Take one cup of hot chamomile

and two aspirins

for Inanna’s milk to quiet in you,

and for us to know what time it is now

at the confluence of the two rivers!

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© Copyright, Mahmoud Darwish.
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