✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

“The Final City.” A Poem by Samer Abu Hawwash, translated by Huda Fakhreddine ‹ Literary Hub

lithub.com · 1,302 words · saved by 1 readers

In the ruins of this final city, in this night of nights, by your small bed torn apart by monsters, I stand naked, stripped of myself and of everything. With these scarce hands I cradle you. I embrace you and lift you up, as far as my heart can reach. How light you are now, my little one, and how heavy this air. How heavy this body that once belonged to you. I carry you, but is this really you? Can a man carry his soul as a dead man carries his blood-stained shirt? Is a man born from his own tears as a tree is born from its leaves? Is a grandfather born with his granddaughter as a jasmine blossom is born with its scent? I carry you, my little one, as if I were carrying the stones, the souls, the blood, the screams, the shadows, the days, the dead epochs, the aborted mornings, all at once, as if I were carrying all the rivers that dried up on your lips, all the meadows that dispersed in your eyes, all the mountains that turned to dust under your feet that will never again touch this sco

Literary Hub >> “The Final City.” A Poem by Samer Abu Hawwash, translated by Huda Fakhreddine Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture History Science Politics Biography Memoir Food Technology Bookstores and Libraries Film and TV Travel Music Art and Photography The Hub Style Design Sports BUY A HAT Lit Hub Radio The Lit Hub Podcast Awakeners Fiction/Non/Fiction The Critic and Her Publics Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast Memoir Nation Beyond the Page First Draft: A Dial

Explore this link on the map →

saved by

related reading