Maria-Mercè in the Palm Grove - by Eileen Chong

ISLAND | ISSUE 160

To fate I am grateful for three gifts: to have been born a woman,
from the working class and an oppressed nation,
And the turbid azure of being three times a rebel.

‘Division’, Maria-Mercè Marçal, translated by Sam Abrams

I am dreaming: we are in the palm grove.
It is night—the stars are present in the cloudless sky.
I am free from pain. We walk in the garden,
past the tiled fountain with its trickled song.

I come to the tree, and we stop. I place my hand,
the one that writes, onto its trunk. In the dark
I can feel where it divided into three: to live
once is not enough. One is born, one must fight,

one will die. You ask me the questions. I say
Yes, yes, and yes. You give me the wine in its ewer.
It is good wine. I am pouring it slowly over the roots;
I am washing each stem, staining my hands and feet crimson.

It is done. Now the tree is mine. I will eat its sweet dates
every harvest. My body has become a sickly flower, rotting fruit.
I am waiting to return, to become a palm, a tree.
Our shadows are tongues, restless on the dry earth. ▼

Photo by Fachy Marín on Unsplash

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This poem appeared in Island 160 in 2020. Order a print issue here.

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