When I Became Fruit
Author: Joumana Haddad
Translated by: Issa J. Boullata
A girl and a boy I was conceived under the shade of the moon
but Adam was sacrificed at my birth
immolated to the mercenaries of night.
And to fill the gap of my other essence
my mother bathed me in waters of mystery,
placed me on the edge of each mountain
and molded me in light and darkness,
so that I become the center and the spear,
transfixed and glorious,
the angel of pleasures that have no name.
Stranger I grew
and nobody harvested my fields.
I drew my life on a white sheet,
an apple which no tree gave birth to,
then I split it and got out
partly dressed in red and partly in white.
I was not only in time or outside of it
for I matured in the two forests
and I remembered before being born
that I was a multitude of bodies
and that I slept for a long time
that I lived for a long time
and when I became fruit
I knew what awaited me.
I asked the wizards to take care of me
so they took me.
Sweet was my laughter
blue my nudity
and timid my sin.
I flew on a bird’s feather
and became pillow at the delirious hour.
They covered my body with amulets
and coated my heart with the honey of madness.
They protected my treasures
and the thieves of my treasures,
brought me silences and stories
and prepared me to live without roots.
And from that time on I fly.
I reincarnate in the cloud of each night and I travel.
I am the only one to tell me good-bye
and the only one to welcome me.
Desire is my way and the storm my compass
and in love I do not drop anchor in any port.
At night I give up most of me
then I hug myself passionately when I return.
Twin of the high tide and the low
of the wave and its sands
of the abstinence of the moon and its vices
of love
and the death of love.
During the day my laughter belongs to the others
and my secret dinner belongs to me.
Those who understand my rhythm know me,
Follow me
But never rejoin me.