Friday, December 20, 2013

مَرْقُس

  • رسالة من مَرْقُس على فايسبوك  بتاريخ ١٩ ديسمبر ٢٠١٣

  • مساء/صباح الخير يا رانوا، اسمي مَرْقُس، صيدلي مصري مقيم في واشنطن دي سي. بقالي فترة باقرا على صفحات أصدقائي وكتير من الشخصيات إللي عامل لها فولو على تويتر وفيس بوك عن "علي شعث"، وقريت وعملت فوفلو ل"أضف" من فترة بحكم إني -الحمد لله- لينوكساوي من 13 سنة.
  • النهاردة شغلتني فكرة التعددية وافتكرت فيلم "سلطة بلدي" -إللي عمري ماشفته ونفسي أشوفه بس قريت عنه وشوفت التريلر بتاعه- وقعدت أدور في المكتبات إللي حواليَّ وعلى الإنترنت إزاي أحصل على الفيلم. فقولت أدور على المخرج، فلقيت "نادية كامل" على الفيس بوك ولقيتها حاطة كلام وصور لعلي شعث، وبعدين شوفت الطفل إللي كان في التريلر في نفس الصور، وشوفت صور "راندا شعث" -إللي كنت متابع صورها من زمان- و"نبيل شعث" -إللي كنت باتفرج عليه من وأنا صغير وهوا بيتكلم عن فلسطين. ده خلاني أربَّط الموضوع بتريلر الفيلم، وإن دي العيلة إللي بيحكي عنها الفيلم تقريبًا.
    ققررت إني أدور على "علي" على الإنترنت، وشوفت كلمته في "تيد إكس كايرو"، وقريت أفكاره، وإللي كتبه الناس عنه. الصراحة بعد كل إللي قريته حسيت بطاقة إيجابية وإشراق على الحياة والعمل بدرجة كبيرة؛ من الآخر علي وعيلتكم ألهموني!
    في الآخر عاوز أقولِّك إن زوجتي وأنا منتظرين طفل في شهر إبريل ومخططين إننا نسمه "نديم"؛ وده إللي اكتشفته النهاردة مع نهاية بحثي، إن ليكم ابن اسم برضه "نديم"!
    أشكرِك وأشكر علي وعليتكم على إلهامي في هذه الليلة ولأيام وشهور وسنين عديدة قادمة. هاحاول إني أعمل حاجة أو حاجات تدعو مراتي إنها تفتخر بيَّا لمَّا أموت زي مانتي أكيد مفتخرة بإلهام زوجِك لناس مايعرفهمش وماقابلهمش؛ بس اتعرفوا عليه بالصدفة زيِّ!
    تحياتي، مَرْقُس
  • Email from Azadeh Moaveni December 12, 2013


    Memories

    *Azadeh and I met in Beirut October 2000. Two weeks after I came back from Egypt, having met and fallen in love with Ali.

    I have been thinking about those early days since you wrote to me, and the details are trickling back to me slowly. I think when you and I met, you had just returned from the trip to Egypt where you met Ali for the first time, and had the legendary, marathon, until-dawn conversation that cemented everything, though in a tentative way, because there was so much to work out and so much more to learn about each other, despite having connected in some incredible, once-in-in-a-lifetime sort of way. 

    So I remember teasing you with Ali M, because you were so moony crazy in love, that you had this perpetually dream-like expression, and would disappear into your phone exchange romantic texts, and then resurface, to suffer through our teasing but enjoying it all nonetheless. 

    I remember wondering what on earth he would be like, as you'd arranged for him to come visit you in Beirut, and do you remember what we did to your apartment? I wager that you devoted as much energy and love to preparing for his arrival as a whole clan would invest in receiving a new bride. Was it spring? The season escapes me now, but when I think back, I remember the vivid colors of your apartment, the sea all turquoise in the background and those buttercup yellow walls and all your gorgeous antique furniture, getting it all ready to greet him. I think that apartment embodied you more than anything else, it embodied your independence, and your passion for the city in which you lived, and your boldness in living alone, way up high at the top of that building, and introducing him to all that was like introducing him to a family, a family that was made of your friends and the city itself, almost.

    So he arrived, and was charming, and you both seemed totally entranced by each other, which was a great relief, since you hadn't seen each other since Egypt and there was great anticipation around that magic being recreated. Which it was. So there were fresh flowers on the table and delicious things in the fridge, and Rana and I made ourself scarce, so that you and Ali could be alone. 

    Where did we meet the next morning, was it at Ristretto? Where all the friends came to meet him, and he passed every single person's test because he was so witty and kind and articulate and warm. I think everyone was partly suspicious, because it seemed like a love affair from an epic poem, something ancient and sentimental, and such things never happened anymore, not like that anyway. But then it seemed like it was real! I think it was that morning at brunch that I realized what made it so profound between you two. It was clear from the very beginning that you were mindlessly in love, but somehow also instantly best friends who connected on many many layers beyond finding the other person exquisite. 

    Those were the early days, and then the first few months after seems like a blur. I was back in Tehran at one point, and I remember you called me from Cairo in tears. You had moved there, but were in a new apartment on your own, and it all seemed so abrupt and was probably unnerving, as you'd transplanted yourself, given up that apartment that was you, to explore this new life that you knew you would be starting with Ali. I was so impressed by your courage, because it was clear that you knew this was the love of your life, your partner destined and gifted by fate, but you still had to go through that path of getting there. 

    The memories that come after that initial visit are cluttered in my mind. Ali M and I came to visit you in Cairo, do you remember? We came to hang out and see how things were going, I think we were both a little worried that you might be feeling wobbly (and i think you had moments of that), but it all seemed not to matter at all when you and Ali were together, because every single moment I can recall when we were all together, when you and Ali were together, in those months before you got married, you were both radiantly happy, sharing little looks at dinner and tilting your head toward each other and utterly enmeshed in the other's very existence. It was amazing. 

    And then so soon you were married, and moved into that Zamalek apartment where Nabeel had his own room and tricked me into reading him extra bedtime stories and it seemed like you had instantly become a family, in this seamless, extraordinary way. What are the moments I remember? 

    Do you remember that day we drove down to the south, and we stopped at that cemetery, and you were looking for a relative of yours buried there. It was not a small place and you couldn't find the gravestone, it was a hot day, and we were all looking and you were so distraught that you couldn't remember or find it. I think Rana and I gave up and sat under a tree. But Ali kept on searching and searching and you finally found it together, and you looked so calm and secure in that moment, with him beside you, having found what you were looking for. I guess that's what you went on to do for each other, seeking and building at each other's side. 

    I'm sorry it took me a day or two to write this. It was hard looking down into the past like that, now that he is gone. My heart aches for you, my Ranwa. I'm here when you need me. 



    ***
    I'm including below a poem that I love, read it some time when you have a moment. It is by Forough Farrokhzad, Iran's great woman poet. 



    My whole being is a dark chant
    which will carry you
    perpetuating you
    to the dawn of eternal growths and blossoming
    in this chant I sighed you sighed
    in this chant
    I grafted you to the tree to the water to the fire.

    Life is perhaps
     a long street through which a woman holding
     a basket passes every day

    Life is perhaps
    a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch
    life is perhaps a child returning home from school.

    Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarette
    in the narcotic repose between two love-makings
    or the absent gaze of a passerby
    who takes off his hat to another passerby
    with a meaningless smile and a good morning .

    Life is perhaps that enclosed moment
    when my gaze destroys itself in the pupil of your eyes
    and it is in the feeling
     which I will put into the Moon's impression
     and the Night's perception.

    In a room as big as loneliness
    my heart
    which is as big as love
    looks at the simple pretexts of its happiness
    at the beautiful decay of flowers in the vase
    at the sapling you planted in our garden
    and the song of canaries
    which sing to the size of a window.

    Ah
    this is my lot
    this is my lot
    my lot is
    a sky which is taken away at the drop of a curtain
    my lot is going down a flight of disused stairs
    a regain something amid putrefaction and nostalgia
    my lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories
    and dying in the grief of a voice which tells me
    I love
    your hands.

    I will plant my hands in the garden
    I will grow I know I know I know
    and swallows will lay eggs
    in the hollow of my ink-stained hands.

    I shall wear
    a pair of twin cherries as ear-rings
    and I shall put dahlia petals on my finger-nails
    there is an alley
    where the boys who were in love with me
    still loiter with the same unkempt hair
    thin necks and bony legs
    and think of the innocent smiles of a little girl
    who was blown away by the wind one night.

    There is an alley
         which my heart has stolen
         from the streets of my childhood.

    The journey of a form along the line of time
    inseminating the line of time with the form
    a form conscious of an image
    coming back from a feast in a mirror

    And it is in this way
    that someone dies
    and someone lives on.

    No fisherman shall ever find a pearl in a small brook
    which empties into a pool.

    I know a sad little fairy
    who lives in an ocean
    and ever so softly
    plays her heart into a magic flute
    a sad little fairy
    who dies with one kiss each night
    and is reborn with one kiss each dawn.

    Saturday, December 14, 2013

    عجبي

    قلبي دق جامد وصحاني
    وقالي تعبت من حبه آه ياني
    قلتله اعقل يا واد وخليك عاقل
    قلت عقل ايه بقى ورنوة واحشاني

                             وعجبي


    علي شعث ٢٠٠٣

    شتاء ٢٠١٠

    قصيدة كتبها علي شتاء ٢٠١٠ - اعطاها لي للاحتفاظ بها. منذ شهرين وجدتها في مكان غير محفوظ فوضعت الورقة في ظرف مع ورقة صغيرة اخرى فيها رباعية كتبها علي لي وظلت في شنطة يدي منذ ذلك الوقت. تذكرتها الآن.




    جاءت كالشتاء بدون مفاجآت
    كلماتٌ و نسماتٌ باردة
    قالت سآتي غداً وبعد غد
    إنتظرني
    الرابعة صباحاً
    لم تشرق شمسها بعد
    ظلام الانتظار مخيم
    الخامسة صباحاً
    افتح الشباك، اضواء مصابيح الشارع
    تغازل نهاراً يحتضنها
    وتنوء اغصان قلبي بندى دموع الليل البارد
    السادسة
    وعد ضوء ليس اكيد
    وسحب تبدي سواداً
    تتمسك باطراف الليل الا يهرب
    ولا محالة
    ستأتي نهاراً صريحاً
    او ظلاً مريحاً
    فالشتاء ليس فصلاً للألغاز والاحجيات
    قالت
    لا تكُن، سأكون
    وعندما اذهب ستورق ضلوعك ربيعاً
    فضُم اليك بردي لحظةً
    واملىء رئتيك بكلماتي
    وسأذهب مع الزفير، وستكون آخر كلماتي
    لن آتي غداً


    علي شعث
    شتاء ٢٠١٠


    Friday, December 13, 2013

    علي

    فكرت وابتسمت. كل ذكرة لي معه اجمل من الاخرى. من اول لحظة رأيته في اكتوبر ٢٠٠٠. لم نحتفل للمرة الاولى هذه السنة بذكرى لقائنا. لم نحتاج ان نفعل ذلك. كنا وصلنا الى الانصهار الكامل. نحن الاثنان كتلة واحدة.

    أحمل فيّ الكثير من علي. قالها لي مرة منذ شهور. “مش ممكن قد ايه بقينا بنفكر زي بعض".

    وما احلى واكبر عيلتنا. ملهمة مثل علي.

    كل كلمة مستمرين منهم اعطتني قوة. البقاء للحب. البقاء للحب يا علي.

    كلنا على الاطلاق التقينا يوم الاحد. كل ما نقوله ونخططه مليء بالثقة. باليقين.

    ما احلاك ما احلاك.

    اعرف انك ستقول لي رأيك دائما. هذا كل ما فكرت فيه اول ليلة. ثم رأيت علي فينا كلنا.