Return to Tunisia, Tahar Bedri

excerpt


I Call You Tunisia

I
I heard your voice at daybreak
Like a scarlet dawn
Giving birth in darkness
The years’ turning back
On themselves
Rocking the ebb and flow
On the shore of a sea
At once full and empty
I caught your light
Lost a thousand times in the distance
A thousand times recovered
Beyond fog
Beyond dreams
Against the drowned reefs
Your calling saved me from shipwreck


II
I mended the nets of your dreams
Gnawed down with use
Days without sails
Masts and oars confounded
On overgrown shores
One falls, the other rises
Nights when the wave escapes
Heavy and light from the backwash
That far-off song
Carrying memory off
Fire and flame against forgetting
Will you tell the sun not to set
On habits’ horizon
The longer the night
The less bright the awakening

Tahar Bedri



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