An Elegy for Al-Hallaj

An Elegy for Al-Hallaj

by Adonis

Your green poisonous plume,
your plume whose veins are filled with flames,
with the star rising from Baghdad,
is our history and imminent resurrection
in our land - in our repeated death.
Time lay upon your hands.
And the fire in your eyes
is sweeping, reaching the sky.
0, star rising from Baghdad,
laden with poetry and new birth,
0, poisonous green plume.
Nothing is left
for those coming from afar
with the echo and death and ice
in this land of resurrection.
Nothing is left but you and the presence.
0, you the language of Galilean thunder
in this land of discarded skins.
You, poet of the roots and mysteries.