Adoration of the Palm Trees - Jean el Mouhoub Amrouche

At night the palm trees shed heavy tears.
Their shadows bend over the sea
Nearly soundless like the scattered souls that weep
In the serene immobility of the stars.
Palm trees,
For whom is the tremor of your lowered hands
And your mute sob in night's vertigo?

Palm trees,
For whom the call of the distant seas,
The warm perfumes,
The anguish,
That rest in the gold of your half-open hearts?
For the cold kiss of the moon?

Will he come, the naked Child, with the enormous eye,
To spread his desire over all your silences,
And in the nameless sky
Will unhoped-for love be born,
And then shoot up into the fullness of the stars?

Oh palm trees,
The shivering coat of your blue'd hair
And the shadow of your swaying bodies;
Each day has sung the delirious suns of these dazzled shores.

The hour when the big sleep
Will bend our heavy nakednesses toward earth
Has rung, far away, on the dream's high plain.

On our forehead we carry the sombre diadem
And our hearts are heavy with the impossible love.
Adore throughout the night and the music of the stars
The wound that your friends the leaves put to sleep,
And the endless sob of your fallen branches.

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Jean el Mouhoub Amrouche  (1906 - 1962) Algeria (died in France)
Translated by Pierre Joris
Source: All Poetry