Now, on this earth which is not the earth,
I remember
(one remembers what one never has forgotten)
white bells
touched with the gold of morning,
or was it the blossoms
in the orange and lemon orchard
throbbing on their March branches?
You ask: What’s the difference?
I heard a glittering resonance
that snatched me from my first primary school shirt
and invited me alone to the small orchard.
I went in playfully
when, suddenly,
the scent of flowers made me feel dizzy
and where it not for my grandfather’s arm,
I would’ve fallen in a swoon
of pleasure and death
(there’s always an arm without whose help we die).
- Can oranges kill you?
Boy, what a disgrace!
He said to me, as if he had said to me:
- Boy, you will learn how to love a woman,
and, like Abdel Wahab, you will write poetry