Saadi Youssef
trans. by Khaled Mattawa
Three POEMS
The Jaikur of Childhood
If I were in Jaikur at midday
I would have taken my threadbare basket
and my hook.
I would have spent the day trying to fish
at a spot on the Jaikur River.
Deep is the water,
and blind my hook.
Cloudy Saturday
Fog on the Mediterranean.
No bird flashing through the window glass.
No seagull cry
and the Moroccan flag is shriveled above the treasury building.
Who commanded the sun to come so late?
Who brought the machinery of ice here, to Tangier's alleys?
I took my escape south, to flee London
and that desolate continent.
But snow is now following me here!
Still, I’ll wait for the sun,
for Africa
and the storks (they nest in the minaret steeple),
I will wait for their song!
Moroccan Workers
From eight in the morning
to five in the afternoon
we knead loaves,
pave sidewalks,
and sleep without prayer.
You ask us, what do we eat?
Beans gnaw at us
with dried cumin and peppers.
Hunger gnaws at us and injustice
bites into us like wolves devouring fawns.
Heavy trucks carry us to the shore
to build villas and hotels,
to build fortifications and trenches.
But when night comes
we are chased away from the rooms we build.
Shall we sing?
Sometimes, we remember we were children,
that villages in the countryside once loved us.
We remember that we once loved,
and our words break into sobs.
Saadi Youssef (1934-2021) is considered one of the most important contemporary poets in the Arab world. He was born near Basra, Iraq. Following his experience as a political prisoner in Iraq, he spent most of his life in exile, working as a teacher and literary journalist throughout North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of over forty books of poetry, two novels, a short story collection, and several books nonfiction.
Khaled Mattawa is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. His latest book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf, 2020). A MacArthur Fellow, he is the current editor of Michigan Quarterly Review.