Souad / Five Poems

translated by Caterina Cipriano

photos by Marcel Mussen

edited by Marek Kazmierski 

The Roads of our Parents

 

Our parents travelled the most winding of road.

Landing in another country, in different places, among other faces, an unknown language has muted them.

The choice should not be between between poverty and contempt and yet this is what has been done to them, this the anger that flows in our veins, that paralyses our souls.

The paradox is complete: freedom of expression means far-right advertisements in our mailboxes mixing with anti-racist leaflets.

If I translate: racism must proliferate in order for them to defend you. This is chaos. But imagine how unsafe, how exploited, all this leaves us feeling. 

 

The Question

 

Almost a year that you have been unfree, but then the same goes for us too.

Your plight has had a considerable impact on your children, on myself.

How can I be indifferent toward your situation because I'm the mother of your children?

To their suffering, their distress, their silence, the answers I make up for them.

I am angry at myself, I am angry at you.

When it comes to them, my feelings are raw in the extreme… isn’t that a normal reaction to have?

I have been there, I relive it, with them through their experience which you inflict upon them.

The question is not whether you are innocent. The truth would only amplify the pain, question the ideas of belonging, cast further doubt on destiny.

Hello Solitude

 

I'm ready to join you again.

I know you came looking for me,

even if I have tried to escape you.

Maybe you are my destiny.

Maybe I love you.

Maybe I will never do without you.

There are parts of me that hate you

and others that know only you.

I heard you sneer when I thought about parting from you,

the trace of distance over days.

But these are the scenes of my life, and you are one of its stars.

So, solitude, how many years have you been present?

I know it was three years and two months.

There are notches in my heart.

Some happiness, but why are you back?

Revelation

 

The day I stopped believing that God was angry at me

I felt deeply soothed.

I let my guilt vanish

the day I understood He wanted my best

and began my search for the truth about Him.

The day I stopped thinking that God was angry at me,

I accepted my flaws

without magnifying them at the same time.

This day is a revelation,

This day is a release.

The day I stopped believing that God was punishing me,

I understood that he had been sheltering me from something.

Sing

 

Sing,

Sing to me

My soul has deserted me,

What am I without it?

My candour,

my youth vanished,

my hopes decimated.

Subtle is the moment,

the one that cuts me from my past,

that reminds me,

constantly,

that time has passed.

Sing to me,

as far

as I can hear,

may the echo strengthen me.