Two Poems by Djibril Sall

Finally have internet in the mountains of the Pyrenees (the village of  Bourg d’Oueil, to be precise) & can try to get back to some normalcy of blogging. Working right now — as I’ve been doing for some two years now! — on the Maghrib anthology. Here are two poems by the Mauritanian poet Djibril Sall (born in the town of Rosso in 1939), translated from Sall’s French this morning.

HAIRE M’BAR

Furrow of fertile earth
Attack of balanitis thorn on fire tongue;
Innocent child’s hand on an millet ear
In morning’s neckline;
Blue sky
Setting sun to the sound of DOUGA

Yesterday it was CAS-CAS in dirt and blood
SIMBARADJI is dust and sweat
Today HAIRE M’BAR in honor and pride

 

Let my pen
gather the pollen
from SPIRIT’S flower:
Free is my heart
Free my thought,
Oh the celestial palette!
rime fetters me
the quatrain torments me
the caesura sections me
the alexandrian fences me in:

JAIL!

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