A SINGLE, REPEATED SENTENCE
The poet must be prepared for impending
disaster.
This means he has to think of a deliverance,
to lead us all out of the rubble –
foreseeing disaster: How to save what might
be saved?
Build a wall around the garden!
Slap death with loudspeakers!
Urge the quiet beach wind to up and blow,
blow!
Sing to the river: You are my love!
Your water is my tribe;
And, he will write this on a white sheet,
this single repeated sentence:
I AM THE DISASTER.
I am the sentence repeated a thousand times
the sentence littered on the roads
hid under lampposts
sent through the windows of bedrooms
and then, in the forest, the deer, the unicorn,
will awaken creatures from their hibernation.
translated by Nizar Sartawi and Veronica Golos
