The third counsel

Against the mirrors of erasure and the betrayals of history, a lyrical sanctuary where the memory of the oppressed rises from the ashes of the cross

Do not forget your face

In the mirrors of others.

For features, like maps

In an enemy’s hand,

Carry the scent of the dead—

We did not see their limbs

Patrolling the walls in the lives of the narrators.

Set a stone between your words and theirs

So your voice may leave a trace

Revealing their hidden schemes.

For their shadows lean upon you,

Stretching over the wall,

As though the dead themselves

Had watched them pace

Through the chambers of strangers

Just to stay alive.

With the quick wit of a sparrow

Caught between a hunter’s fingers,

With the body whose very limbs 

Are bewitched by it

With the serpent contemplating its sin

On the apple of vision,

With the remnant of regret

That bleeds along the edges of your day, 

With what tomorrow inherits

From the lines of your hands,

With the pain

Before which tyrants’ foreheads 

Have bowed.

Find your final turning glance

In their mirrors,

Then return

With the hollow ringing of its defeat

To the bells

Of the linage’s rams.

Your wrists upon the cross

May haunt them

If they see you rise

From among the graves.

And in their narratives,

Your standing among them,

Between the stones of counsel,

May take shape

Like wind

On the stairways of paradise—

Higher

Than their betrayal

Of your salt

On the road to resurrection.

It is not your voice

That speaks

So they may see your eyes

Descend from the cross

To gather the scattered limbs

Of your shadow.

Not your voice—

Only the ache

Of remembering.

Mary waited for you alone

In the stories

Told by sinners.

These councels are inspired by the advice of his mother, which he wrote under the title “The Ten Counsels of Fawziya Al-Hassan
Translated by Najwa Juma

Abdulla Issa

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