What Have I Done to Love You Twice?

What Have I Done to Love You Twice?

By Saer Wadoud

Translated by Alaa Alqaisi

 

 

She is from here—

from our tears.

Ordinary as our battered land,

yet none resemble her.

 

She slept upon the water’s lip

and Hashem[1] slept forever in her name.

 

The wall gouged out her eastern flank—

where longing once had touched—

and chained her fragile throat in iron links.

 

And the sea wrapped her western waist

from the side of absence.

It shut the doors against escape,

sent a wave to tear the prophetess’s robe.

It offered her its longing—

she turned it back in doubt.

 

Confused, like any city facing the sea,

she longed for its blue—and feared its foreign heart,

choosing instead her tears.

 

She listened, like a lover,

to the wind’s recitations from afar,

and took from the vast ocean’s blue

only what foam the water left behind.

 

Ordinary as our land—

yet none resemble her.

 

Ordinary as our land—

yet always

there is something in her

that sets her apart.

 

 

Each word she speaks is born of nations—

a thousand fields lost in the grain of accents.

 

“Who distilled the whole of Sham into one luminous sentence,

resting in the people’s speech—

a ballad of long fatigue

guarding the tears of the humble?

Who guided the mighty Nile into a phrase,

to stretch its arms with tawny water,

singing the names of things?”

 

“Lost—

in the crowd of voices,”

says the Damascene lover to the dark-skinned girl:

“Speak,

so I may guide these words back to their native plains,

like deer that fled from songs

and never returned,

their voices gathered here, aching for the homeland.

Speak,

so I may trace these dialects

and return the villages their names.”

 

Each time I recite the verses of the Night Journey[2],

or veil a rhyme in memory,

do my tears dissolve into the wide unknown?

 

Each time I call your name—

a name above all names—

the echo will not answer.

 

What have I done?

What have I done to love you twice,

and watch my longing wash away in vain?

 

So speak.

Or say my name once,

blue in this ruined life,

so anemones might bloom upon my shoulders

and my heart find sleep in dew.

 

When you sang to the setting light

that wandered westward with its vanishing hope,

the narrow path was perfumed

by the rose of lovers—

they reached out with rings and open hands.

 

And when you sang of Paradise

from behind the siege,

counting the names of lost villages,

weighing the harvests of forgotten seasons,

the scattered country gathered—

in elegies and funeral hymns.

 

And I saw—

I saw you on the path of dreams,

a song about the boundless sea

stretching west as far as it could,

coming to Gaza in wind and tears,

kissing your feet

each time you stepped on sand.

 

Are you Gaza—

if she wished to be a sun-burnished goddess,

her waist a mirage,

her palms open plains?

 

Are you Gaza—

when womanhood surprised her,

and she wore the face of the city,

then rose from its streets a prophetess?

 

Her name was rain,

her breasts became fields.

Are you the woman, the lover,

who spilled the wine of her roses

for the desiring beloved?

 

Or was it a chapter torn from the Talmud,

a sword unsheathed

upon a nameless family

fleeing toward the far salvation?

 

Are you a city betrothed to war since birth,

with vanishing always stitched into your name?

Or are you the tender mother of small angels,

who bid farewell to earth

the moment they descend

from your generous, wounded womb—

and you forget, always, that you are dying?

 

Who are you—tell me—

what song sent you fleeing to my chest?

What dream carved your name behind my ribs?

From what field, wind-scattered and unnamed,

did your wet fingers bloom along my palm?

From what distant rose

did you spill your heart into my veins,

and sow the only kiss we ever tasted—

in sleep?

 

I saw your sorrow in the fog of dreams,

and smelled your palm—

scented like the color of oranges.

 

Who taught the small hand

to sleep among the threshing floors

for one night of love,

that it might birth noble trees from nothing—

figs, and pomegranates, and oil?

 

Who taught the little girl her dream?

Of mother, children, and a house?

 

And who—

who stole the quiet?

 

Who planted flowers over you

as you slept like a doe

beneath the city’s crumbling bones?

 

I saw you on the path of dreams—

a song about the boundless sea,

stretching west as far as it could,

coming to Gaza in wind and tears.

 

How did the sea become like —

longing since your birth for the impossible embrace—

its desires shattering

before they even reached Joseph’s shirt?

 

And how did you become a prophet without visions?

Did you see, in a dream, stars bow to your face?

Did you tell your dream to wolves?

Have you lived your life inside the well of siege,

sold—for a paltry price—

by brothers made of your own soul?

 

And when you brought

the truest blood the sky could speak,

and raised it before those

who listened only to echoes from the nearby pit—

they never believed your wounds.

 

“We will not be twice deceived

by lies dressed in color.

We’ll believe the innocent wolf,

and deny the martyrs.

Jacob’s wise eyes

shall not be veiled in white—

for you are not our beautiful Joseph.

There are no stars in your dream,

no scripture on your lips

to make us believe

your death in broad daylight.”

 

They never believed your blood.

They threw you in a narrow well,

stacked wall upon wall,

and turned toward Israel—

so the land might be emptied for them.

 

Only the vast sea

became like Potiphar’s wife—

seeing you as Joseph, sold for nearly nothing.

 

It too dreamt

of an impossible embrace,

its blue desires shattered

before the shirt could ever be touched.

Translator’s afterword

Potiphar’s wife—referred to in the Qur’an as Imra’at al-‘Aziz—is a central figure in the story of the prophet Yusuf (Joseph), recounted in Surah Yusuf, the twelfth chapter of the Qur’an. She appears as the wife of an Egyptian official who attempts to seduce Yusuf, a servant in her household. When he refuses her, she accuses him of harassment, which leads to his imprisonment. In the Qur’anic version, she later publicly admits the truth of what occurred. The story differs in emphasis between the Biblical and Qur’anic traditions. In the Qur’an, Imra’at al-‘Aziz is portrayed with more narrative complexity: her desire is acknowledged, and her confession is presented without condemnation. This version has been a source of literary engagement across Arabic and Persian traditions, where her figure often appears in poetic and symbolic forms.

In the poem, the reference to Potiphar’s wife is made through metaphor. The sea is likened to her in its longing, while Gaza is positioned in the place of Yusuf. The allusion draws from a well-known narrative structure in the region’s religious and literary heritage, providing a framework for metaphor without directly retelling the original story.

Saer Wadoud is a Syrian architect and poet. He writes primarily in Arabic, focusing on themes of identity, estrangement, memory, and reflections on the overlooked details of everyday life. He is deeply interested in literature and human rights issues.

Alaa Alqaisi is a Palestinian translator, writer, and researcher from Gaza, deeply passionate about literature, language, and the power of storytelling to bridge cultures and bear witness to lived realities.

[1] Hashem: Refers to Hashem ibn Abd Manaf, the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad. According to Islamic tradition, he died during a trading journey and was buried in Gaza.

[2] The night journey of Isrā led Mi’rāj, i.e the ascent of the Prophet Muhammad into the Heavens.