February 03, 2009

Like a small cafe - Mahmoud Darwish



Like a small cafe that is love

Like a small café on Strangers Avenue
It is love… open for all.
Like a cafe that is full or empty
According to the climate:
When it rains customers increase,
and when the weather is moderate,
They decrease and get bored…
I’m right here sitting in the corner,
strange woman,
What color are your eyes?
What’s your name?
What shall I call you,
when you pass by me,
while I’m sitting, waiting for you?
A small café is love. I order two glasses
of wine and drink my toast and yours.
I carry two hats and an umbrella.
It’s raining now.
Raining more than any day,
and you don’t come in
I say to myself in the End:
the woman I was waiting for,
must have waited for me…
or for another man. She waited for us
but couldn’t recognize him/me,
and she was saying:
I’m right here waiting for you.
What color are your eyes?
What wine do you love?
And what’s your name?
what shall I call you
when you pass in front of me
Like a small cafe that is love

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is beautiful. I am reading this Drwish's poem for the first time,the translation is good, you can recognize Darwish from the first two lines. Thank you. It reminded me of another his poem about waiting:

While waiting
by Mahmoud Darwish

While waiting, I become obsessed with observing
the many possibilities:maybe she forgot her small
suitcase on the train, and my address got lost
and her mobile phone got lost, so she lost her appetite
and said: No share of the light drizzle for him/
Or maybe she got busy with an urgent matter or a journey
to the south to visit the sun, and called
but didn't find me in the morning, because
I had gone to buy some gardenia for our evening
and two bottles of wine/
Or maybe she was in dispute with her ex-husband
over matters of memory, and she swore not to see
another man who might threaten her with making memories/
Or maybe she crashed into a taxi on the way
to see me, which extinguished some planets in her galaxy.
And she is still being treated with tranquilizers and sleep/
Or maybe she looked in the mirror before going out
of herself, felt two large pears
making waves on her silk, then sighed and hesitated:
Does anyone else other than myself deserve my womanhood/
Or maybe she ran, by coincidence, into an old
love she hadn't healed from, and joined him for dinner/
Or maybe she died,
because death loves suddenly,like me,
and death, like me,doesn't love waiting

Anonymous said...

Sometimes people do meet on Strangers Avenue and have their time till the rain stops, sometimes they just pass by under their umbrellas not coming in.
Let it rain...

Nina louVe said...

yes, let it rain and smile
life,s so short somehow

Coffee Love said...

I love this poem. So beautiful how are lives can be like cafes and love ... people coming and going, sometimes staying together ...