Featured again today on the blog with affectionđđ
âŚ
for May
Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021
after her first poetry book, Dream Flowers
May Ziadeh writes: âI hope that after my death someone will do justice to me and extract from my small writings the truthfulness and sincerity it contains!!â
b. Feb. 11, 1886 – d. Oct. 17, 1941
born in Nazareth, lived in Egypt and Lebanon
my own âdream flowersâ found and preserved with a golden cross Iâd also found with a rose jeweled center


Oct. 9, 2021
My letter to May and two of her poems recited by me for a creative and meditative experience:
đđđ

May, You wanted a smile for your poetry; Here is mineâŚđ
I feel you smiling back.âď¸

and I happen to be reading a book by your favorite English poet for the first time
The letter and poems in writing, if youâd prefer to read:
10/9/21
My lips are scented with that chrysanthemum; the flower kissed powerfully and sweetly was carefully and freely not crushed by my lips; it became more fragrant, and revealed the very center of it, a tender and beautiful white.
I think of you, May…passionate, beautiful, direct, tolerant of differences, creative, and feminine; you knew what it was to be a friend, to consider a friend, to think into the many things that influence peopleâs everyday lives and happiness, the subtle things that are not the loudest voices heard, the sayings that arenât ever-about a personâs own image or luck, and to see everything else deeply, including our souls and your own, to write and speak as a voice for the voiceless, so that they felt the support to pursue what brought them fulfillment, create a path for them to find, and add to the conversation.
I was dreaming of you somehow before I was born; I remember thingsâŚin feeling, not time or place; Iâve found some of my own phrases in your writings before Iâd read yours, and much earlier than my own birthdate, and with your differences that soothe and complete mine, and mine, yours. Could I have been a soul awhile, not yet in my body, as you were once too, and now are you a soul with a body of heavenâŚnot leaving behind warmth, personality, or weight?
I donât always know if you found me first or I found you; the blossom I have in my hand has become a royal purple⌠for you, a queen theyâd wanted to dethrone again and again, throw you away and not ask why, get some gain that doesnât fill any lack, just power without pointâŚand whatever they took; they didnât get anything for it, if they made no space for a treasure, and what you have is yours always.
I am happy to know you with your presence and words, you were revered for introducing your esteemed prose poetry in your place in the world and I found my earliest freedom discovering the form myself not knowing it just writing it, same time a hundred years after you and finding some of the same images of yours and dedication in mine.
I like to speak with you, and I also learn your native language a little at a time, to read your work, to learn of the heart through your writing of your early desire to give away your fleur dâamitie, friendship flowerâŚand I have the books of yours now that Iâd hoped for, I got your Byron to read near future and your Lamartine for another timeâŚ
Iâve seen God more truly through your poetry and the last words of your will, to find and meet with God who uplifts me, not trying to ever-shape me impossibly as from apart, or get me only for me proving my belief, and believes more in me than I wouldâve thought necessary. We are the soul beyond the books we write, and not behind them, and you bring mine alive.
I love you,
Jade
*
Two poems by May Ziadeh from the original French and my own translation of her 1911 book, Dream Flowers. Another poet (not myself) has been working to put her own translations of the book into print in English for the first time.

TWILIGHT Very slowly my dreamy step Mark the ground of your aisles; And I walk, clasping my heart, Under your disheveled branches; Embracing lovingly In the festoons of their foliage, To me, smiles an image Of a distant friend tender and charming. ⌠And it is evening⌠and the silence With its drowsy echoes Flows into my soul on the way To a heaven of dream friends. Ah! it is the twilight hour Which made Rousseau shiver, Where Edgar Poe thought of the dead, The hour when Baudelaire meditated⌠Under the shroud of the distant flood Vanishes the burning plum From the sun, so cheerful in the morning, But much more beautiful at this hour! And the plum of the night And my heart, so young, is clutching Under the splendour of this beautiful evening⌠The shadow that weighs on her and the mystery of the world that seems too dark to her⌠And tears, without just cause, Tears of a misunderstood fear, Tears of a child without brother or sister, Slip on my closed eyelid⌠by May Ziadeh LACRYMOSA I caressed my lyre with my weary hands And I climbed the coast where I often walked, And I kissed the flowers of the intertwined branches, And I followed my dream, going to the goal sought. With a beating heart in haste, in the shadows; A single desire in the soul, a tear in my eyelashes, Seeing the sky too dark and the city, too dark, I followed you, my dream, Distressing and soft! ⌠Follow the impulse, go when the spell calls you⌠In the tender twilight, wander alone and thoughtfully, and watch the sky when rebellious grief has bruised the pure heart that sobs, passive⌠The sky is black, but something, a shimmering point, a semblance of pink plum, a star with soft, waving fires⌠As well as the star, formerly, Bethlehem to the Magi showing, the star that guides me awaits me at the door of the cemetery. Child long gone, O brother, turned-beautiful angel, Forgive my voice, my little one, My sad voice that disturbs you! May your form, without lingering, Take up the ephemeral dress Of his childhood and his land And come and look at me a little! Does he remember our childhood? You are a few months old, I, proud of my importance, I was indeed two and a half years old; We often slept side by side Amused by our interviews Composed of laughter and nothing, To see a fly jumping; Sometimes we fought very hard, And you bit my hand that dared, That touched your golden belt On your dear cradle laid down; And I bit your finger, your hand, your arm, your cheek, and you felt well, confess! Breathless from my rough-yard. Then, conciliating like a man, Your arm stretched out, calling; And you seized my body, as a mother soothes a child; You sucked my stern lip, And I on the tip of your nose I laid my fingers dismayed For having so wounded my brother. And for a long time I cried on the empty cradle When, fearful, I saw a strange white and pink setting open Where something was laid⌠And the echoes seemed to whine! Since years have passed; I have grown, suffered, embellished, and have been refined by my loves: the greatest is buried and sleeps! Often the sweet call of my brother Has burned my lip and my heart⌠Ah! too cruel is the pain That fills our days on earth! O my brother, O my dead brother, Nothing shudders in your ashes! Do you feel anything sweet and strong On all that was you, descendingâŚ? For your sister comes to sing to you With our eastern lullabies, Slow nocturnes, autumnal⌠Could you not repeat themâŚ? Do the dead forget the romances Which they have learned to stutter, And their companions of suffering, And all their efforts to tryâŚ? And from their mother tongue Do they forget the extravagant accents, And the visions of scenic attractions Of the country, the beautiful countrysideâŚ? Ah! in my arms, Form of love, that gently leans over me, Come! Receive and give in return the kiss of a heart that extends! One is weary, bitter, grieved To see life a long lie; Brother, come and kiss me in a dream! âŚTears on my forehead bowed⌠âMay Ziadeh

pink chrysanthemum upon my path

~*

~*

*
Previously: Singing
4 responses to “A Letter To Honor Poet May Ziadeh and Two of Her Poems, Eighty Years Later”
[…] Earlier: (print version) A Letter To Honor Poet May Ziadeh and Two of Her Poems, Eighty Years Later […]
LikeLike
[…] A Letter To Honor Poet May Ziadeh and Two of Her Poems, Eighty Years Later […]
LikeLike
[…] A Letter To Honor Poet May Ziadeh and Two of Her Poems, Eighty Years Later […]
LikeLike
[…] Previously: A Letter To Honor Poet May Ziadeh and Two of Her Poems, Eighty Years Later […]
LikeLike