Jack Clift is a doctoral researcher and translator affiliated with the Multilingual Locals, Significant Geographies (MULOSIGE) project.

Jack Clift , MULOSIGE

Mohammad Sabbagh, Aḥlām al-arḍ (Dreams of the Earth) 

Before the time is ripe… 

Dreams of the Earth [1]

Spiders spread from within themselves masticated, mouldering threads and gather them on piles of rocky dust.

Moss-covered insects, delirious, chew over the darkness in their dark hovels in the roots of plants.

***

Time has a straight edge: a single instant can empower and overwhelm a boat, vertical and bare of shadow, its oars tensed in the hollow core of the sun.

***

A single, soft whisper descended from the eyelids of the rocks and was promptly swallowed up by the profound silence.

***

The ashes tell the story of the fire that advances on the claws of the boulders.

***

The Earth is long and wide in its expanse. It stretches, to the right and to the left, and in the chasm at its centre it holds the hope of the poor threshing floor. It then returns to its burden:

A column of stars, wringing out their most intimate essence into moulds made of clay, which soon begin to froth and foam. [2]

Pearl oysters fill rings, readying them to rise into the sky, like the nets of shadows thrown by the imprint of the sun on a thicket of trees. [3]

A butterfly suckles at the teats of the gazelle.

***

A small peacock proudly preens its plumage and says:

“All of you, look at what is beneath my feathers!”

The peacock had laid an egg. It said this and then broke the egg with its foot. The sky bird that emerged from it began enveloping the lands far and wide on the horizon.

The peacock continued:

“All of you, look at the garden of the horizon, at the rainbow!”

The sky smiled as it replied:

“Thank-you, thank-you darling one! I have adorned my brow with this pendant and, in recognition of your beauty, I will give to you what is most precious to me.” 

The sky bent over the peacock and placed its crown on its head, kissing it on both cheeks.

The sky said to the peacock:

“Take this crown as a gift from me to you and carry it on your head forever.

“You will always be a symbol of the sky and of the highest heights. You will be loved by kings and by princes, you will be the adornment of palaces and of gardens, you will be the cooling fan used at dawn and used by lovers. Now, go and flaunt your beauty to the whole kingdom!”

***

A plough made of marble cleaves a violet cloud. In its wake, the yellow down of birds floats from baskets interwoven with the feathers of the sky.

***

The pure wind passes over the mountains and sheds on their peaks its frosty skins, heralding the rains of winter.

***

A single gust…

Like the tongue of a churchbell set free from on high, like a beam of sunlight that has broken on the back of a storm.

[1] We are grateful to Professor Jaafar Ben al-Haj Soulami for his insights on some of the more complex phrases in Sabbagh’s work here. If any readers have suggestions for improvements or clarifications to this translation, please do not hesitate to get in touch!

[2] The allusion here is likely to human beings, who, in the Qurʾān, are said on a number of occasions to have been crafted from clay; see, for example, Q6:2, Q15:26, Q23:12 and Q32:7.

[3] The first part of this sentence has proved particularly difficult to translate. For the translation provided above, we read taʿubb as tuʿabbiʾ (from ʿ-b-ʾ, ‘to load,’ ‘to fill,’ ‘to pack,’ ‘to prepare something for’). An alternative translation here would be to read aṣdāf not as ‘pearl oysters’ but as ‘the side of a mountain’ or ‘the part between two mountains,’ as in the first meaning listed here by Lane; to read taʿubb as from ʿ–b-b, meaning ‘to drink down,’ ‘to lap up’; and to read khawātim as the plural of khātama (rather then khātam, ‘ring’), and therefore meaning ‘end,’ ‘conclusion.’ This would give something along the lines of: ‘The steep mountain slopes swallow up the final steps of [our] ascent to the sky, like the nets of shadows thrown by the imprint of the sun on a thicket of trees.’ Any additional interpretations would be gladly received.