By Fadi Abu Deeb

(Published originally in Inventory No.8, Princeton University)

When I appeared inside
your face was filled with joy
as though it were your day
as the only bride in a clan of priests
You said you knew a field of new olive,
Disguised upon a nearby moon
“Let’s move the stones of our room, its window,
its sun and the flood of its overwhelming sea!”
You said we’d live there for a long time: ten hours
Once the Hidden One comes to the field of olives
We will come to greet him with enigmatic joy,
our torches drenched with newly pressed oil:
Green, serene, embryonic
as the offspring of ancient times, of Tishreens *
We all enter his palace that looks out over God

• * Tishreens: In Arabic – and taken from Syriac – October is the First Tishreen and
  November is the Second. In some Levantine dialects, the two months are grouped
  together as “Tashareen” (the Tishreens).