"sometimes I regret my love of splendor"
'Autumn wind at the foot of the mountain' (すそ野秋風 Susono aki kaze), print No. 22 from the dai ōban woodblock series 'Thirty-six Fujis' [三十六富士 Sanjūroku Fuji], 1981-1986, by Hagiwara Hideo (萩原 英雄, 1913–2007)
from “October 27, 2003”
by Etel Adnan, translated by Sarah Riggs
those who cannot leave
discover the geography
of the body. there are also airfields
and harbors on the surface of our souls
don’t leave the Mediterranean
without telling her that you loved her:
her daughters and her sons went
North, a day of rain, or a day
of war
as for me, I belong to the stones
thrown for lack of helicopters,
to the women locked up,
to the political prisoners;
sometimes I regret my love of
splendor
but our solar mother star,
and the lunar father, in their way,
have entrusted us with useless
objects from a forgotten century
Etel Adnan, Time, translated from the French by Sarah Riggs, Nightboat Books, 2019
Creative Invitation
Etel Adnan writes,
“as for me, I belong to the stones
thrown for lack of helicopters,
to the women locked up,
to the political prisoners;”
Consider — to whom do you belong?