حجر‬ Stone

حجر‬

أقول لهذا الحجر: أنا أنت. فيقول: لستَ مرناً الى هذا الحدّ. أقول: قلبي مثلك؟ فيقول: لم تعرفني إلا من الخارج. أقول: هل يعني أنك تحسُّ؟ فيقول: بالطبع، وأحياناً أذرفُ دمعةً، ولكني أعود وأتماسك، فهذه طبيعتي المجبولة. أقول له: ألك ذاكرة؟ فيقول: كيف لا، ولي سيرة أيضاً، بيد أنها ليست قابلة دائماً للقراءة. سجِّل عندك: كنت في مقلعٍ، ثم صرتُ مدماكاً، دخلتُ مرةً في تكوين جسرٍ، ومرةً تصديتُ لأمواج البحر عندما بلغت الزُّبى، وها أنا، الآن، كما ترى قنطرة في بيت مهجور. أقول له: لن تختفي إذن؟ فيقول: لن. أنتم الذين تأتون وتذهبون. بعضكم يتركُ طبعةَ يد طريِّة على أديمي، وآخرون يتركون طلقةً، وأعرفُ الفَرْقَ بين هذا وذاك.
 

Stone

I say to this stone: I am you. The stone says: you are not so flexible. I say: isn’t my heart like yours? It says: you only knew me from the outside. I say: does this mean that you feel? It says: of course, and sometimes I shed a tear – but I regain my composure, this is my given nature. I say to it: do you have a memory? It says: why wouldn’t I, and my own biography as well, but it is not always open to reading. Record this: I was in a sling, then I became a slab. I once took part in the construction of a bridge, and once confronted the waves of the overflowing sea. Here I am now, as you see, an arch in a derelict house. I say to the stone: so you won’t disappear then? It says: never. You people come and go. Some of you leave the mark of a tender hand on my surface. Others leave a bullet-hole, and I know the difference between this and that.
 

Stone

I say to this stone: I am you. The stone says: You are not that flexible. I say: My heart is like
yours? It says: you did not know me except from the outside. I say: does this mean that you
feel? It says: of course, and sometimes I shed a tear. But I regain my composure; this is my
set nature. I say to it: do you have a memory? It says: why not. I have my own biography as
well, but it is not always amenable to reading. Record: I was in a sling, then I became a
block. I once took part in the construction of a bridge, and once confronted sea waves as they
flowed excessively. Here I am, now, as you see, an arch in a derelict house. I say to the stone:
so you will not disappear then? It says: never. You people come and go. Some of you leave
the mark of a tender hand on my surface. Others leave a shot and I know the difference
between this and that
 

It was a pleasure to work on another poem by Amjad Nasser, along with translator Atef Alshaer. This prose poem took on a whole other level when Atef described to us the associations of stone for a Jordanian poet. Whilst we think of it as fixed, cold, hard and cruel, the stone of Petra is colourful, warm, constantly changing, imbued with emotion, and in its pink curves can look almost human. Atef also felt the destruction of cultural treasures by Isis might inform this poem and its brutal final image, adding a political resonance.

As ever there was much debate over particular words. What do you call a piece of stone used in a building? We tried block for a while, toyed with cornerstone, but eventually stumbled on ‘slab’ in an online thesaurus (which alliterated so nicely with ‘sling’.) ‘Bullet-hole’ also dragged us ten minutes past the end of our workshop! The Arabic word allows for holes made by other weapons such as arrows, but simply ‘shot-marks’ didn’t have the necessary power, and ‘wounds’ made the stone sound vulnerable. Eventually we went for the strongest image, even whilst acknowledging it might shut down some possible readings.

Original Poem by

Amjad Nasser

Translated by

Atef Alshaer with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Jordan