(1) I am fond of my place beating, breathing myself my memories There, the Octagon lives with me * * (2) Distorted is my childhood if I do not remember projecting parallel lives dancing against white majlis walls guarding exposed hallways the mashrabiya my father designed * * (3) Not all museums pregnant with things My grandmother’s house she weaved dark fingertips burnt from morning tawa bakings She never liked things nor clutters things make stories and songs decorated rooms, walls, hallways but echoes of her stories * * (4) When I move to another place my roots carried * * (5) Enfolded in the folds of my grandmother’s baskets my father’s mashrabiya like fresh Egyptian musk an arrival announced just before mine My father’s hands cut, drilled hammered, polished two children born * * (6) Seasons turned Found a place to call my own my parents’ nest I searched for roots to carry Our eyes met I take her to a carpenter’s shop repainted * * (7) She looked at herself a happy little girl frilly dress bows and barrettes “Perhaps not everything new is bad” she twirled * * (8) In a new living room glistening with pride gracious presence tattooed in Islamic patterns rainbow splatter she stands erect inscribed in her heart a shiver * * (9) Every piece of furniture I bring to her with the owner of this house where endless springs sprung stained in Nubian colors lined with gold what factory made you?” * * (10) When long days end she and I familiar, intimate we empty our heavy souls to be refilled for a brand new day (١) أحب مكاني لأنه يشبهني و أنا أشبه مكانٌ واحدٌ بملامحٍ شتى مكاني هو متحفي الحي معرضٌ لذاتي و ذكرياتي تسكنه معي ”الثُمانية“… هي روح المكان * * (٢) مشوهة هي طفولتي إن لم أتذكر مرآة صالتنا المصرية لوحات الحرير الماليزية على جدران مجلسنا الفازات اليابانية المزخرفة بالورود في نهاية الممر و المشربية التي صممها والدي فألبس بها طاق الدرج كان المتحف الأول الذي سكنته فسكنني * * (٣) ليست كل المتاحف تعج بالأشياء في بيت جدتي كانت التحفة الوحيدة هي جدتي سلال السعف التي تصنعها بيديها و أطراف أصابعها المحروقة بطاوة الخبز كانت لا تحب الأشياء ولا الفوضى و زينة مكانها الوحيدة هي المشموم و الحكايات و الأغنيات رحلت جدتي و ذبل المشموم و بقيت حكاياتها و الأغنيات * * (٤) قالوا لي عندما تنتقلين لمكان آخر كوني خفيفة الأمتعة و خذي فقط الأساسيات فحملت جذوري و أغلقت الحقيبة * * (٥) “بين سلال جدتي و مشربية أبي، جلب زجاجها المزخرف من مصر قبل صنعها بيديه، فأصبح لديه طفلتين * * (٦) قبل انتقالي لمكاني الجديد، و تلاقت النظرات “!رفعت ذراعيها : ”خذيني أخذتها للنجار لطلاء جديد * * (٧) أطلت على نفسها كمن تزهو بفستان جديد قالت: ”ربما ليس كل جديد سيء” * * (٨) توسطت صالتي العارية و انصعت لكبريائها و حضورها لخشبها الصلب، و نقوشها الإسلامية الملونة و كلما قرأت ”هو الله“ المنقوشة بالخط الكوفي في منتصف زجاجتها سرت في جسمي قشعريرة * * (٩) مع كل قطعة أثاث جديدة أقتنيها تجلس جلستها المستقيمة، و تتباهى صنعني حرفي ماهر” .ولدت في هذا البيت مع صاحبة هذا البيت زجاجي جاء من مصر، معشّق بالألوان و خطوط الذهب “و أنت، من أي مصنع أتيت؟ * * (١٠) بعد كل يوم طويل “تنتظرني ”الثُمانية تحتضن كوب الشاي الساخن الذي أعده و نغمر بعض بالألفة و نفرغ أرواحنا لنعيد تعبئتها ليوم جديد
Look alikes
singular, layered
Each of us each other’s features
living museum
grand exhibition
her soul dwells
Egyptian mirrors of a living room
Malaysian silk paintings
Japanese floral vases
dressing naked bended arches
The first museum I reside
within me, it resided
she the masterpiece
Palm frond baskets
roughened hands
Mashmoom flowers
My grandmother left
her mashmoom withered away
rhythms of her songs
stayed
“pack lightly”, they said
“bring bare essentials”, they said
So I closed my bags
I find my Octagon
Garnished glass smell
her arms held out
“pick me up!”, she said
solid wood
Every time I read: “He is Allah”
in Kufi
Through my body runs
She sits up straight, she boasts
“the hands of a craftsman made me
Born in this house
My glass from lands
But you, sitting there,
my octagon waits
embracing a hot cup of tea
Immersed in each other
Together
Dear Reader,
Our story began with a conversation between two friends, Ghadeer and Sara, walking back to the university library after a quick dinner in Dinkytown on a cold evening in December 2017. Fueled by the crisp air that filled our lungs, our feet rushed through crowded pavements and across busy streets, making their way through a fog of breath exhaled by warm bodies and buildings. Soon enough, our minds wandered away in denial, escaping the painful one mile walk under the cloak of another harsh Minneapolitan winter. Naturally, we both started thinking of home: Bahrain, or should we say: Bahrains?
Ghadeer: “Sara, have you ever been to a cultural festival in Bahrain? Recently, they have been trying to go with modern themes, culture with a “modern” twist, especially the food!”
Sara: “Ah! I miss food festivals in Bahrain! Lgaimat, khanfaroosh, harees, madroobah! I have frozen drool on my face right now and it’s your fault.”
We giggled for a moment, before our giggles faded into frozen wisps among the loud masses of the living trying to seek refuge from the arctic winds.
Ghadeer: “Speaking of food, what do you think about the so-called balaleet bites?”
Sara: “Those sound heavenly, but I don’t think I have tried them. I’ve had basboosa bites though. Those were delicious – yum!”
Ghadeer: “Isn’t it interesting how our traditional food is transformed to finger food and commercialized for the sake of being trendy?! I’ve always found it annoying. I do not understand why people have to ruin our traditions to be cool – to accommodate modernity. It’s like we are re-appropriating our own culture!”
Sara: “Hmm… I never thought of it that way. Is it a bad thing though? Aren’t traditions always in formation, always in the process of becoming? I mean, most of our Bahraini food is a fusion of other cuisines: Indian, Iraqi, Iranian… right?
With those words, we finally arrived at the library building to study for our finals. We stomped our feet and shook off the snow before walking in.
Ghadeer: “I’ve written a blog entry about this once, why I dislike balaleet bites. I’ll share it with you the next time we talk.”
It wasn’t before the following summer that we picked up on that conversation for AGITATE!. At her first attempt, Ghadeer drafted an article in English, a narrative based on her Arabic blog post. However, this preliminary attempt strayed away from her envisioned inquiry, the genre could not capture her frustration nor curiosity. The text was cold and confined. Its flow was turbulent. It was Sara’s feedback that invited Ghadeer to consider a different literary genre, something that would allow her thoughts to run freely and for her words to flow like the spring waters of Adhari. Since then, the blog entry that animated Ghadeer’s writing evolved into a serendipitous poem in Arabic, a genre and language by which she is able to see, hear, and feel places and times. Through its rationales and alphabetic scripts, she takes her readers on an intimate journey, walking them through untold stories of the child she once was and the places she once inhabited with family members, living and nonliving. Ghadeer brought all of this to her friend and now neighbor, Sara, and asked her to translate her text once again, to make her words and worlds accessible to an English-speaking audience, dwelling in realities seemingly so far away. Rather than claiming a melancholic attachment to an original text, Sara’s translation of Ghadeer’s poem emerges from unlived memories unfolding in parallel worlds: memories of grandmothers’ bedtime stories cradling us to sleep, the warmth of tawa bread freshly made for our breakfasts, the sweet scent of mashmoom flowers braided in our hair, and the sounds of timeless songs echoing in our neighborhoods’ alleys.
Sara: “Ghadeer, should we revisit the Arabic poem in light of the English translation? We might want to make some changes…”
Ghadeer thought in silence for a moment.
Ghadeer: “No, I think we should offer both texts as they are. Each has a soul of its own.”
Thus, the poems we offer here are an attempt to claim a literary fidelity of a different kind. Rooted in multiple acts of translation and mediation, of agents and actors, the fidelity we claim through the lure and blur of poetry is one that carefully agitates with a genealogical reading of the text (Merrill, 2009). While inherently intertwined with each other, our writings take a life of their own, troubling in effect false claims to sovereign authorships, to authenticity, to faithfulness, and truthfulness. In so doing, they invite us to ponder over the ways in which stories are told, through gaps that may never be filled and melodies that may never be unsung.
Yours,
Ghadeer and Sara
References
Merril, Christi. “The After-lives of Panditry: Rethinking Fidelity in Sacred Texts with Multiple Origins.” Decentering Translation Studies: India and Beyond, edited by Judy Wakabayashi and Rita Kothari, pp. 75–94. Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing, 2009.
—
