Contemporary Arab poetry
Ustura (myth)
If time was to begin all over again
And water flooded the face of life
And the earth shook and God hastened
Requesting of me, "Noah, save
The living!" I would not heed God's words.
I would roam in my ark
Clearing pebble and mud from the eyes of the dead.
I would open out their depths to the flood.
I would whisper in their veins that we
Are back from the wilderness, out of the cave,
That we have altered the firmanment of years,
And that we sail undereterrd by fear,
And do not listen to the words of God.
--Adunis (1930- )
