The September edition of Poetry magazine publishes 3 poems by Palestinian poet Zakaria Mohammed. English translations by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha accompany the Arabic texts. She publishes a translator’s note as well. The poet’s death on August 2, 2023, is noted by Leonie Rau in ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly.

I’ve read the poem “2013-1-2” in my dictionary-bound way, and have transliterated the Arabic text to show the vowelings and case inflections as I perceive them. Tuffaha’s recording of the poem in the online edition helps train my ear to the living language, and her translation helps check my understanding of the Arabic text.

As a student I’m best served by literalness in my own English version. A fringe benefit is that translating close to the metal feels like polishing a wry lens for viewing the world. The result can read oddly, as can poetry itself.

2013-1-2
Once I shot a gazelle. And the gazelle is a poetic necessity, nothing else.
The sheep, white or black, are the truth.
What’s important, I set for the gazelle a trap and it fell into it. And in me (was) an appetite,
you can’t describe it, for savoring the salty meat of gazelles. I don’t like the meat
of sheep of the malls. But I like your wheat-colored hand
hanging medals on my shoulder. I like your lips saying to me:
You are the pollen of the date palm.
I am the pollen of the date palm? I am the iron that wounds it, and the frightening full moon
that cuts its throat. I no longer have power over the gathering of my dispersion [See note] . I no
longer distinguish between gazelles of the mall and the sheep of the poem.
Futility to drive away the gazelle, and futility the pollen of the date palm.

If I die, open my email. The password is on a sheet of paper on
the table. There you will find my will, and you will seize the gazelle
by its two horns.

If you spot a parsing error in my transliteration, please tell me. I know a pausal reading omits many of the case endings, but documenting them helps me test my grasp of syntax.

marraẗ(an) qanaṣ(tu) ḡazāl(an). wa-l-ḡazāl(u) ḍarūraẗ(un) ši^rīyaẗ(un) lā gair(u).
‘al-‘aḡnām(u)-l-baiḍā’(u) ‘au(i)-s-saudā’(u) hiya-l-ḥaqīqaẗ(u).
‘al-muhimm(u), naṣab(tu) li-l-ḡazāl(i) šarak(an), fa-saqaṭ(a) fī-hi. wa-bī raḡbaẗ(un)
lā tūṣaf(u) li-taḏawwuq(i) laḥm(i)-l-ḡizlān(i)-l-māliḥ(i). lā ‘aḥibb(u) luḥūm(i)-
ḍ-ḍa’n(i) fī-l-mūl(āti). lakinna-nī ‘aḥibb(u) yad(a)-ka-l-qamḥīyaẗ(a) wa-hiya
tu^alliq(u) ^alā katif(ī)-n-nayāšīn(a). ‘aḥibb(u) šafaẗ(a)-ka wa-hiya taqūl(u) lī:
‘anta ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i).
‘anā ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i)? ‘anā-l-ḥadīdaẗ(u)-l-latī tajraḥ(u)-hā, wa-l-badr(u)-l
muẖīf(u)-l-laḏī yanḥur(u)-hā. lam ‘a^ud qādir(an) ^alā lamm(i) šatāt(ī). lam
‘a^ud ‘afruq(u) baina-l-ḡizlān(i)-l-mūl(i) wa-ḍa’n(i)-l-qaṣīdaẗ(i)
^abaṯ(un) ṭard(u)-l-ḡazālaẗ(i), wa-^abaṯ(un) ṭal^(u)-n-naẖlaẗ(i).

‘iḏā mutt(u) fā-ftaḥ(ū) ‘īmīlī. ‘al-bāsūwurd ^alā waraqaẗ(in) fauqa-
ṭ-ṭāwulaẗ(i). hunāka sa-tajid(una) waṣīyaṭī, wa-sa-tamsik(una) bi-l-ḡazāl(i)
min qarn(ai)-hi.

Note
“I no longer have power over the gathering of my dispersion” [lam ‘a^ud qādir(an) ^alā lamm(i) šatāt(ī)]. The active participle [qādir(an)] inflected adverbially expresses a state of ableness The verbal noun [lamm(un)] ranges across the acts of “gathering,” “reuniting,” “putting in order” and “repairing.” The verbal noun [šatāt(un)] conveys the sense of being “scattered” or “dispersed,” and can include the term “diaspora,” though it’s not mentioned in Hans Wehr. The speaker may feel either powerless or fed up with a condition of exile. Tuffaha translates it as: I can’t bear my exile any longer.

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