31. If the sky rains once over the vase
Not many literary journals are around. Most of them have shut shop due to various reasons. Primarily due to lack of readership.
One of my favorites, the American magazine “Denver Quarterly” is still in circulation.
Founded by novelist John Williams in 1966, the Quarterly is the literary journal housed in the Department of English & Literary Arts at the University of Denver.
The beauty is that the editor gives priority to the work of non-professional writers and writers from marginalized communities.
The poem titled ‘Abstraction’ which I’m sharing below attracted my attention because it explores the theme of disillusionment. This is a poem by Aya Nabih, a contemporary Egyptian writer, translator, and poet.
The poem is translated from Arabic by Maged Zaher. I noted it in my diary while reading the Quarterly’s Volume 48, No 1, 2013.
Read on -
The petrified clocks
Are harsh like a wall
And like my writings:
Useless
I have a space here
In the yellow room
And from my place
I can see the plastic roses
Above the refrigerator
Looking like death...
(Perhaps those roses would smile
if the sky rains once over the vase)
I'm – certainly - here
How can "I" be there?
While outside the open window
There is the same scene:
Night and a white paper circle
That only hides a small area of the dark
When my left hand aches
The right one consoles it
And pets it like a cat licking its young in the winter
I'm here and no one else
The room is yellow
The night is a lake bottom
The moon is like my writings:
Useless
The clocks
Seem petrified
But something pushes me to believe
That yesterday
The roof of my room
Was not so close