Poème Asmaa Jama: We, the salvage
Publié le 08.05.2025, 13:01
Pour Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker et Radouan Mriziga ont invité Asmaa Jama à écrire un poème, qui conclut la performance. Vous trouverez le texte ci-dessous.
We, the salvage
in the dream the sun has no teeth
it waits for no one
the earth is an empty thing, and i wander through it searching for a marker
i mine and wait
my body is limp and heavy and scaled, like a dead fish
the sea is an emptied mountain, the salmon speak to me, their eyes glazed,
below the horizon there is a mountain of salt
next to it a mountain of octopi tentacles in the air, as if in prayer
it is the height of mid winter and the sun won’t set it scorches the ground,
each day is the length of a hundred days, and i sit on the earth and wait for the night
the earthworms wait with me, we glisten like jewels - we glisten like jewels,
and wait for the harvest
it doesn’t come
and so the birds come,
in their masses and together we gather bones,/ we name them for the ancient gods/
our found fossils
when night finally falls, dust rises from the ground, it lingers at the wells and makes breathing impossible
i remember the first people their lungs their water marked faces/ they are buried now / they are long gone
the moon appears in its pale shroud -and tells me to perform a ritual for the old seas, and so i name and call them, and they come to me, lapping at my ankles the indian, the atlantic, the baltic
and i am less alone
they soothe my aching limbs, and i shut my eyes when i was first born, i was named after the sun/ god said let there be light and so i was / an
isotope /
a comet streaking the sky, i collapsed onto earth
i caused wildfires - forgive me / i am trying to salvage the soil now/ i am trying to stop it from becoming a cemetery /
the dark came back and swallowed us and with it the light i tethered my organs - and told myself to stay
stay like the fragile gazelle hoping for a new day/ last of its kind / stay -like a seedling / waiting for the sun / i tilt in its direction
i circle it / and worship
i stay on earth, waiting for the fieldmouse
i call back the dead
i am, the salvage, i was waiting for
spring, i was waiting for, rain, i was waiting for
i am the land i am the ocean waiting to wake
-- Asmaa Jama