The Witness
The Witness
Nathalie Handal
The witness witnesses himself
in the gaze of a bruised child
in the throat of a national song
in the chest of an oak tree, a walnut tree
in the heartland of lime tree after lime tree
in the testimony written on yellowing paper
in a month, not about to finish
in the mute rivers surrounding the pregnant wife
of a young warrior
in the footsteps of folk dancers
in the bloody gates of government buildings
in the dark gray gusts of wind
The witness stands between leafless trees
laments dead refugees, observes the cloud's beard
and the dullness of the sky after days of bombing,
thinks of those in warm beds while naked bodies
weave their last prayers under the snow, realize that
hospitals no longer give life, only death roams the sheets
who will finish all the unfinished sentences-
like the one standing in the middle of a whole dream with an empty gun
The witness looks at the dead years piled up on lost chests
coughs in the cough of winter and leaves the conversation
he has with himself in a broken ashtray
somewhere in this divided country
and the witness says, the heart is like time with fewer seconds
the witness witnesses his heart stopping
as time moves on