Exil From ‘Exile’

Exil

L’exil m’érode, tige dans la tempête de dune / Les vertiges, nausées du sevrage, me renversent / chiffon que le vent agite / sur les piquets des campements désertés / Le parfum de la nostalgie m’étouffe / comme un enfant entraîné par le reflux des vagues / Le soleil dessèche mon cœur / Mes yeux sont tannés par le regard de l’étrangeté / grimaces de fantômes / Les soucis ont creusé mes tempes / des rivières, marques de la vie / rides d’une pastèque abandonnée / sur les pas de la caravane / qui relie Ghadamès à Tombouctou / Mes souvenirs sont figés dans les mirages du temps / Aujourd’hui, des milliers de milliers d’étapes / vallées de vipères, falaises de fumées-ténèbres / me séparent des campements de jadis / où les corbeaux ont dévoré les rayons de la vie nomade
 
L’exil me noue comme les cordes de marins
 
L’angoisse m’élime en une aiguille de douleur
 
Des années et des années sont passées / Je suis la trace de mes rêves / Tant de nuits ont coulé derrière moi / Je danse dans les flammes
 
J’ai goûté la sève des fruits de tout l’univers / les parfums de toutes les fleurs / menthe, jasmin, grenadier / fraîcheur du palmier / jardins, ombres des palais / mosquées du lointain orient
 
J’ai écouté l’écho des larmes / métissage de tous les accords / Je me suis bercé à toutes les aurores-balancelles
 
Mais rien n’a adouci mes gémissements
 
J’ai dit / Où sont les tentes de jadis / imprégnées de l’indigo d’ahal ? / Où sont les tentes d’autrefois / ouvertes vers l’horizon des étoiles / le désert de la liberté errante ? / Où sont les saisons de la transhumance / Cours d’amour et de beauté ? Où sont les plaines de mirages / où pâturent les jeunes chamelles / aux gazelles mêlées / gardées par des garçons / tresses serrées dans la ceinture
 
O jusqu’à présent, j’entends les cris de joie / des braves guerriers / Je vois encore dans le soleil couchant / la silhouette des antilopes au cou élancé / les maîtresses de l’ahal / Sourire de la lune
 
Kha ! caresse fine des doigts / sur le violon de l’honneur / qui nous allie au toit des constellations / hors du temps
 
Khay ! Mes brûlures n’ont pas de remède / car mes rêves sont emportés / dans les tourbillons d’acier / des machines-dragons / entre la patte des hyènes
 
Quelle erreur de confier le gouvernail / du vaisseau de la vie à des épouvantails / qui le font dériver dans la tempête
 
Nous emporterons l’étincelle de cet exil / jusqu’au trône des galaxies / au royaume des éclats qui plongent / dans les océans de lumière / Car la douleur de notre exil se confond / avec celle des gémissements de l’âme / voyageuse / des corps-pierres jusqu’à l’absolu
 
 

From ‘Exile’

Exile erodes me, a stick in a sandstorm / vertigo, the nausea of withdrawal, knocks me over / a rag waving in the wind / above the tentpegs of deserted encampments / The perfume of nostalgia suffocates me / like a child dragged by the reflux of the waves / The sun desiccates my heart / Estrangement leathers my eyes / grimacing ghosts / Worries have worn rivers in my temples / marks of life / wrinkles on a discarded watermelon / along the path of the caravan / which links Ghadamis to Timbuktu / My memories are fixed in the mirage of time / Today, thousands upon thousands of steps / valley of vipers, smoke-shadowed cliffs / separate me from encampments of old / where crows have devoured the last rays of nomadic life
 
Exile binds me like a sailor’s rope
 
Anguish works me into a needle of pain
 
Years and years have gone by / I am the imprint of my dreams
 

Exile

Exile wears away at me, a stalk in a sandstorm / Spells of vertigo, the nausea of withdrawal / a rag waving in the wind / along the tent pegs of desert encampments / The perfume of nostalgia makes me suffocate / like a child carried by the ebb and flow of the waves / The sun shrivels my heart / My eyes are burnt by the look of strangeness / grimaces of ghosts / Worries have carved rivers in my temples / and brow, the marks of life / like the wrinkles on an old watermelon / along the path of the caravan / which links Ghadamis to Timbuktu / My memories are frozen in the mirages of time / Today, thousands upon thousands of steps to take / alleys of vipers, cliffs of smoky darkness / stand between me and the encampments of long ago / where crows devoured the light of nomadic life
 
Exile binds me like a sailor's ropes
 
Anguish hones me into a needle of pain
 
Years after years have gone by / I'm a trace remnant of my dreams / So many nights have flowed past me / I dance inside the flames
 
I have tasted the syrups of countless fruits / the perfumes of innumerable flowers / mint, jasmine, pomegranate / the freshness of gardens / filled with palm trees, the shade of palaces / mosques of the distant East.
 
I have listened to the echo of tears / the bastardization of all agreements / I have rocked myself in the swing-chairs of dawn
 
Yet nothing soothed my howling.
 
I said / where are the tents of long ago / impregnated with the indigo of the ahal ceremonies? / Where are the tents of times gone by / their entrances aligned with the horizon of the stars / the desert of border-free roaming? / Where have the seasons of swapping pastures gone / Lessons on love and beauty? Where are the plains of mirage / where young camels / and gazelles graze / watched over by boys / wearing braided belts
 
To this day, I can hear the joyous cries / of brave warriors / I still see the silhouettes of antelopes / with elongated necks in the setting sun / the mistresses of the ahal ceremonies / The smile of the moon
 
Kha! Fingers gently caressing / the violin of honor / which takes us to the rooftop of constellations / beyond time
 
Khay! There's no remedy for my burns / because my dreams have been swept away / by the dragon-machines / and their whirlwinds of steel / pinned under the paws of hyenas
 
How wrong I was to trust the rudder / of the ship of life to scarecrows / who led the vessel adrift in the storm
 
We will carry the spark of this exile / to the throne-room of galaxies / to the kingdoms of sparks that plunge / into the oceans of light / Because the pain of our exile will blend / with the wailing of the soul / of the voyager / and with stone-bodies all the way to the absolute
 
 

It seems fitting, if unfortunate, that we have had to translate this poem about exile at two removes. While he is arguably the most revered living Tuareg poet, Hawad has had to publish all of his poetry in French editions. He composes his work in Tamazight, but Hawad’s poetry and audience are often first found in French – albeit a French that he translates himself or alongside his wife, Hélène Claudot-Hawad, a leading scholar in Tuareg literature. This particular poem, composed as a commission for a French Literary Festival, acts in some ways as a speech towards its intended audience as well as a lyric expression of the sentiments it conveys. As André Naffis-Sahley, our bridge-translator, explained: the estrangement the poem describes is actually being described towards an audience which the speaker is, in some ways, estranged from.

Throughout the workshop André took time to explain both the nuances of cultural and personal significance, emphasising that this poem was unusual for Hawad in being relatively direct. Unlike the “trippy” verse novels/dramas which he usually writes, this poem seems to come from a single united lyric voice. In trying to find the right words and register for this voice, we felt the need to constantly balance the organic and the manmade elements of suffering and disaster that the poem invokes. So, for instance, the word “tige” in the first sentence might be rendered as either “stalk” or “stem” but also “rod” (to evoke a marker in the desert perhaps). To try and maintain these elements we chose “stick”. Likewise, in the final sentence of the first stanza, the toyed with translating the word “dévoré” as “consumed” to emphasis Hawad’s critique of colonialism and globalisation which have contributed to this enforced exile, but ultimately prefered the visceral “devoured”. We were particularly satisfied with the suggestion of “last rays of nomadic light” for “les rayons de la vie nomade” which gently rendered the elegiac undercurrent of the French into idiomatic English.

This excerpt from the poem represents perhaps the opening third of the whole poem. A documentary on Hawad’s work is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPejm_-K_kQ (subtitled in French).

Edward Doegar, Commissioning Editor

Original Poem by

Hawad

Translated by

André Naffis-Sahely with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Tuareg

Country

Nigeria