The Gypsy/الغجرية

The gypsy has no map,
only songs
for the places
she will cross
and forget.

She hums in secret
and when words don’t come
she borrows the roads’ beats,
the fast and the slow.
The birds understand.
They answer in secret, too.

She doesn’t care much
about transformations
between day and night
although she’s puzzled
and amazed by the moon,
how it passes her by
and moves away,
like a train disappearing
with its passengers
until it stops,
at the last station,
finally alone.

The gypsy waits for no one.

History is dry blood
in her lipstick.
She applies it now to kill
or beautify
the moment a little.

She knows the time
from the way the roses bend,
from how far or near the sky is,
and from the dryness in her hands.

When the gypsy tires
of wandering,
she sits in the shade
and with her little stick,
she draws on the earth’s floor
the face of someone
she doesn’t know.

~ trans. from Arabic by the poet