Fatiha Morchid
Inza’a Anni l’khota
(Take my steps off)
Poems
Toubkal Edition, Casablanca 2015.
Poem from the book:
Take my steps off
Steps
Are the pain of the shoe
Take my steps off
Like a thorn from a foot
O you walker
On a path
That no longer pleases you
Stop
Where the shade
Takes a break from you
Your anxiety
Won’t perturb the dead
Nor will concealing your pain
Prevent feeling it
The luxury of your faith in tomorrow
Amazes me
As if it’s destined
To be better
As if coincidences are unbiased
And forgetting
Is within reach of the heart
I will never be
A goldfish
Coiling around itself
In your little water
I have a kinship with the blue
And a passion for boats
Which never come back
Let’s knead ashes
Into a loaf
For the wretched in love
Hunger cannot save
From nostalgia
When poems
Overflow
O Night
Unable to hide your secrets
Hanging stars are tired
Of our aborted groans
As rocks
Of dashing waters
O Night
Open your eyes
On our secrets
And take our enduring steps off
All destinations lead to us
As we stand naked
In the middle of the dark
O Night
O friend who doesn’t know me
Open your eyes
So that I see me
Between myself and me
Salt beaches
Pain of seagulls
And storms
That wash away
The dreams of seamen
Between myself and me
A misunderstanding
A misloving
And a bit of loyalty
To a little girl
That still exercises standing
To dazzle you
Facing the wind
I walk on
My memory crawling behind me
Chapters I do add to it
Chapters it does take off me
How narrow is the path
Without reinventing memories
What can words do
When meaning dries up
In the vein of passion?
And what can
The heart winds
With the astrolabe debris?
Time is tired
Of chasing its shadow
And so am I
Of my own thin shadow
Who can stop clocks?
Or restore travel illusions
To the cane
When stations call out
In their full silence?
O friendly night
I seek not the unraveling
Of my soul’s talismans
With your white sheets
Let them be a smile from the unknown
When the dark enwraps me
That’s all..
That’s all.
Translated from Arabic by Norddine Zouitni