Rosas

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker en Radouan Mriziga vroegen aan Asmaa Jama om een gedicht te schrijven bij Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione. U hoort het op het einde van de voorstelling. De tekst vindt u hieronder.

 

 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