Leaving my home, traveling alone among strangers; being with my dear family and so soon saying good-bye and leaving their welcoming home; returning to my homey spaces; leaving home again (as I am doing today) and becoming absent from my house and garden… A lot of this kind of drama has been mine, this month. I will write more soon about this week’s travels. I have to say, though, that none of my leavetaking has felt as painful as a scorpion!

LEAVETAKING

On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.

Inside the palanquins
on the camels’ backs
I saw their faces beautiful as moons
behind veils of golden cloth.

Beneath the veils
tears crept like scorpions
over the fragrant roses
of their cheeks.

These scorpions do not harm
the cheek they mark.
They save their sting
for the heart of the sorrowful lover.

-Ibn Jakh (1000 – 1050) Spain
     Translated by Emilio Garcia Gomez & Cola Franzen