Again, I have to preface this one.
There is a famous street in Baghdad called Al Mutanabbi
street.
It's the heart of the cultural center where the old book
market is.
And it's named after a very famous Arab poet, Al Mutanabbi.
And a few years ago, there was a suicide bombing in that street,
and it killed a lot of booksellers and people
buying books.
And there was actually an effort in this country
on the part of some publishers and owners of bookstores
to have an anthology of poems celebrating the book
culture on this street.
So my poem is entitled "A letter to Al Mutanabbi Street."
It addresses the poet himself after whose name
the street is named.
"You were right.
Your words are still winds of light always carrying you
to us.
Sometimes, carrying us to you.
And your name is a green tattoo on Baghdad's tired face.
Your street, a forehead of a body beheaded every morning.
Just another chapter in the saga of blood and ink
you knew so well.
I cannot lie to you.
I'm quite pessimistic.
We are still etching on the walls of this cave, which
is thousands of years long.
Signs we keep reinterpreting, and myths about a future world
where we don't devour one another,
and where the sun is friendly and the seas cannot inherit
our fevers.
Some of us are digging a deeper grave about to embrace us all.
They, too, have their engravings, maps, philosophers,
and books.
We can only keep dreaming of a shore for the wind,
and dig wells in the dark with nails of silence and solitude.
We will weave an ocean out of ink for our myths,
and out of words a sail or a shroud vast enough for us all.
Every book is a well around which we sit and drink
to your health and try to live like you
did with death and after it."