تفاحة في الخيال An Apple of the Mind

تفاحة في الخيال

لا تزالُ هنالكَ تفاحةٌ تَتَجرؤُ
أن تتمدَّدَ فوق الظِّلالْ
 
لا يزال الشِّجارُ على الظلِّ
قيدَ تنازُلِ غُصْنٍ عن الاحتلالْ
 
لا تزالُ يدٌ «ما » هُنالك تَدفَعُها
شَهوةُ الجورِ أن تقلعَ الأرضَ من جذرِها
بذريعةِ أن أبصرتْ
«خطأً في الرمالْ »
 
لا يزالُ من الأرضِ يخرجُ وفدُ
شياطينَ كي يُعلِنوا أنّ في باطنِ الأرضِ
مملكةً ≠من شياطينَ ≠
جاهزةً للقِتالْ
 
لا تزالُ هنالكَ فلاَّحةٌ
تَقسِمُ البذرةَ المُشتَهاةَ لشقّين
شقٌّ لأبنائها في القُبورِ
وشقٌّ لتُفاحةٍ في الخيالْ
 

An Apple of the Mind

There remains an apple that dares
to stretch out over the shadows
 
There remains the struggle over the shade
until the branch surrenders its occupation
 
There remains ‘some’ hand that uproots
the ground, driven by the pull of injustice
under the guise
of ‘a fault in the sands’
 
There remains a body of devils
emerging from the land to reveal
that the earth’s belly bears
a kingdom of demons ready for war
 
There remains a farmer
who divides the desired seed into two:
one for her children in their graves
and another for a spectre of an apple
 

An apple in the imagination

There still remains an apple that dares
to stretches out above the shadows
 
There still remains the quarrel over the shade
until the renunciation of a branch from the occupation
 
There still remains a ‘certain’ hand there pushed by
the lust of injustice to pull out the ground from its root
under the pretext that it noticed
‘an error in the sands’
 
There still remains from the earth a delegation emerging
of devils to announce that in the earth’s core
is a kingdom – of devils –
ready for fighting
 
There still remains a female peasant
who splits the desired seed into two parts:
one part for her children in the graves
and a part for an apple in the imagination
 

During our translation session, we delved into Haifa Aljabri’s poetry and explored her focus on the human experience and her personal views on the world, including political and social issues. Her poems often narrate stories that seek to blend with nature and the landscapes she has lived in.

We specifically discussed her poem, which was initially titled “An Apple in the Imagination.” Still, we eventually agreed on changing it to “An Apple of the Mind” to connect it to the themes of shadows and spectres that appeared throughout the poem. The repetition of “There remains” at the beginning of each stanza added a sense of rhyme, rhythm, and music, which the poet maintained throughout the poem she wrote in Modern Standard Arabic.

We had fruitful discussions about the poem’s keywords and concepts. For instance, we changed “quarrel” to “struggle” to convey a more political connotation and “abandoned from occupation” to “surrenders its occupation” to highlight the link to land and place. We also decided to change “female peasant” to “farmer” to reveal the character’s gender only in the third line of the final stanza, allowing for an open reading that aligned with the poem’s spirit and the poet’s intention.

-Leo Boix

Original Poem by

Haifa Aljabri

Translated by

Nashwa Nasreldin with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Saudi Arabia