between flower and stem
between day and night
among the laughter of slumber
among the caresses of absence
Where are you girl of the night
already the poem is out of breath and the words are slipping away
drunk with its black wine the pen dances arabesques
the vowels are absent-minded
and the restless consonants wander in procession
on the emptiness of the yawning page
You will be the only one to understand tonight why
I am writing this poem of lust, olive, blood and love
I would like to speak to you in the belly of the night
When crumbs of stars are dancing on your mouth
of honey and fever
Where are you girl of the night
I know that you will come back
for I am the wildcat of the lair
the reptile that winds around you and brings you back
to the light of day
Already I am biting your palms
and singing in the coolness of your hair
and I no longer have ears for anything but the gospel of your voice
when the harmattan of desire
scourges our bodies
Soon when I see you again
you will give me the time
and later give me the time once more
we will go to buy newspapers right and left
left-right right-left
I will read them from east to west
you will comment on them from north to south
then we will scatter them to the winds
to the four corners of illiteracy and hunger
Then we will go to listen to the politicians
they come in all sizes and colours
solemn serious liars
opportune prophets
For it seems that COMMUNISM must be banned
for world peace
CAPITALISM fought for world peace
SOCIALISM redefined for world peace
and it seems that not one nation has taken LOVE as its ideology.
We will go to live elsewhere
for God must live elsewhere
We will make children of all the races
I will help you cradle the ones and feed the others
I know our children will be beautiful
and that they will not enter life through the wide gate
of money and insolence
nor that of vanity and cowardice
they will neither be the eldest children of baseness
nor murder’s youngest
I will go with you on all the roads that can be walked
to sow on the bank of suffering the first seedlings
of FREEDOM
We will build cities without houses or streets
without jails or hate
Manthie, I would have liked so much to lie to you
to tell you that the hungry little boys do not exist anywhere
on Earth
to lie to you to tell you
that cemeteries have closed their gates
to lie to you to lie to you Manthie to lie to you
to lie to you
so that you never know hate
so that you never acknowledge the wildcats’ madness
so that you never come into contact with the pride and madness
coming from their freezing caves
To lie to you Manthie
to love you innocently
Thank you Binta de Awa the aurora
my mother beautiful as ever seven moons on a
silver savannah
Tenant of nothingness
mad about freedom with no land
the world is unfaithful to my dreams
And women are cut off from the dream of loving
men from the dream to grow old
Thus the birds of the heart have migrated by the full moon
and I am flirting with bare hearts
alone among the stripped rock
the festival of sin
among the rebel peanut
among the rebel millet
the rebel cotton
the rebel sprout
Alone with the offended swallow
alone among the abandoned children
the mutilated desire
among the distorted star
the shattered emerald
the frightened cowries
the nailed coffins
the shut windows the closed doors
I watch over these countries my country
this country mad about its sons
mad about its freedom
unfaithful to its dreams
My country was not born to a woman
and yet in my country you see
the sun is a woman the day is a woman
forgiveness is a woman song is a woman
and I was born of the song of women
Come
let us share the star that fell last night
behind the prophets’ slumber
I love to watch
Senegal fall asleep at night on your eyelids
and awaken each morning in your eyes
You will be the Singular Miracle of the seagulls
the great land
that for which I want yet
to live and to accept LOVE
Amadou Lamine Sall (born 1951) Senegal
Translator not stated
Thank you for this treat
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