Moroni - MAB Elhad

The Moon’s disc emerges slowly,
Atop the Karthala and its wide open crater.
Crystalline night,
In a town of the East,
To the opaline reflections.

Here are the minarets from which comes  the muezzin’s call,
From old palace collapsing as on a fresco,
From crenulated remparts where ferns grow.

And here is the market, sleeping at this hour,
Not far from the cemetery and the noble residences ;
And here are the narrow lanes of the quarter dominating the bay,
With their madrassats and their frail arcades.

Moroni, arabesque land,
With its hundred detours and its thousand staircases,
Which always lead to our secular mosques!

The moon’s disc salutes the Ocean
Immobile and shinning like a silver plate.

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Karthala crater and the town of Moroni
(Source: Blue Turtle Tours)

MAB Elhad (Mohamed Abderemane Boina Foumou) (Born 1968) Comoros
Translated by Antoisse
Source: Poètes des îles de la lune