WHO IS STEALING MY FOREST?

Shlomi Nissim

I light my green leaves

and warm my self .

I exhale

and slip

with the ecstasy of one falling into the enemy ’s embrace

with the delight of one accepts his tortureer ’s judgment

or with the ravenousness of one who shares the murder his guilt

I flee

from innocent weakness to absolute frailty

from sex to a pleasure that sex cannot kill off

from my own wisdom

to the ice of escape.

I find shelter in the land of a brazen angel,

in brimstone growing within its own secrets ,

from my intelligent misery

to a storm of cruelty purified of hope

like the like return of the prodigal daughter to her last escapade

to the wedding that follows the sun

where I will neither live nor vanish .

And my spirit calls me toward a reasonable, foolish kind of madness

that has ebbed and flowed through my life

So I began to sway from rebellion to infatuation

and from ecstasy to dispersion

completely unaware

Here I am returning

Here I am returning to love

like the return of the she-lion to her husband the lion

So who will steal the forest from me now

JOUMANA HADDAD