Le Désert au crepuscule
The Desert at Dusk
Three excerpts from the book, Tahar Bekri, The Desert At Dusk (bilingual ed. published 2025; French edition, Le Désert au crepuscule, published 2018 in French, and to be released in a bilingual edition in 2025 by Contra Mundum Press. See the book here.
II.
Et je t’entends gémir
Vieux désert
Que de palanquins d’opprobre
Portes-tu sur le dos
Des navires ensablés
Leurs bosses comme des fosses
Dans la fureur du firmament
Tous ces chameaux écumeux
Chancelants au seuil des demeures
Ne suffisent pour retenir les collines
Sous la rosée éplorée
II.
And I hear you moan
Old Desert
How many palanquins of infamy
must you bear on your back
How many ships silted over
their humps like graves
in the rage of the firmament
All these foaming camels
staggering at the threshold of domains
can never hold back the hills
under this tearful dew
III.
Dis vieux desert
Combien te faut-il de palmeraies orphelines
Pour consoler les palmes
Les ruines de ruines en ruines
Perdant le sommeil
La Nuit te fait-elle si peur
Cette voie lactée
Confondue avec la traînée de poudre
Les météorites fumantes
Dans les vallées de ton cœur
III.
Tell me Old Desert
how many orphaned palm groves
will you need
to console the palms
The ruins of ruins lying in ruin
Is Night so frightening
while you sleep
This milky way
confused with the trail of dust
The smoking meteorites
in the valleys of your heart
IV.
Et je te vois
Vieux desert
Réveillé en sursaut
D’éclat en éclat
Par les prières récitées à l’envers
Comme des fragments de suie
Les versets des fossoyeurs
Psalmodiés dans l’insolence des chenilles
Enterrant mes limons
IV.
And I see you
Old Desert
startled awake
flash after flash
By the prayers recited backwards
like particles of soot
The verses of the gravediggers
chanted as the insolence of tank-tracks
buries my siltings
Author Notes
Tahar Bekri
Tunisian poet (b. 1951)
The poet was born in 1951 in Gabès, Tunisia. He has lived in Paris since 1976. Bekri writes in both French and Arabic. His thirty published works comprise poetry, essays, and art books. The poetry, awarded various literary distinctions, has been translated into numerous languages and is studied and commented in both academic and artistic works. Awards include the French Language and Literature Prize from the Académie Française, 2019. Bekri has been Honorary Lecturer at the University of Nanterre. Most recent publication: Mon pays, la braise et la brûlure, Ed. Edern, 2025.
Sources
جدلية, Jadaliyya-. “Al-Shabbi’s ‘The Will to Life.’” Jadaliyya – جدلية, https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/23935. Accessed 23 Dec. 2021.