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lyrics

"A Night Flooding from the Body" by Mahmoud Darwish

Translation from Arabic:

Jasmine on a July night. A song
for two strangers who meet on a road
leading nowhere....

Who am I, after two almond eyes, he says
Who am I, after your exile in my body, she says

So, fine, lets be careful not to
stir the salt of the ancient seas in a body that remembers....
She would return to him her warm body
He would return to her his warm body

Like this the lovers, strangers, would leave their love
disheveled, the way they leave their underwear
between the sheet's petals...

– If you're really my lover, compose
a song of songs for me, and etch my name
into the trunk of a pomegranate tree in the gardens of Babylon
— If you really love me, put
my dream in my hands and say to him, to Mary's son:
How could you do this to us - what you did to yourself?
Sir, do we have enough justice so that we'll
be just tomorrow?

—How might I be healed of jasmine, tomorrow?
—How might I be healed of jasmine, tomorrow?

They surrender to the darkness, together, in shadows that dance across
the ceiling of his room: Don't be somber
toward my breasts, she said to him...

He said: your breasts are the night that lights up the drudgery
Night that covers me in kisses, and fills us both up,
the place and I, with night overflowing the cup...
She laughs at his words. She laughs again
as she hides the slope of the night in her hand...

—Oh my lover, if I could
have been a boy, I would have been you
—If I could have been a girl
I would have been you!

She cries, as she usually does, returning
from a wine-colored sky: Take me,
stranger, to a country upon whose willow
I won't have a bluebird!

She cries, to cut across her forests in her long
departure toward herself: Who am I?
Who am I after your long exile in my body?

Ah this exile form me, from you, from my country
—Who am I after these two almond eyes?
Show me my tomorrow!

Like this the lovers leave their farewells
disheveled, like the scent of jasmine on a July night...

Every July jasmine carries me to
a street leading nowhere
Yet I continue my song:
Jasmine on a July night.....

credits

from The Butterfly's Burden: Music for Dance Makers, released March 12, 2015
Text from the poem "A Night Flooding from the Body" by Mahmoud Darwish

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Gavin Stewart North Carolina

Gavin Stewart is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, choreographer and dancer from Tulsa, OK. While Composer in Residence at Company E, he created music for five original, evening-length productions. He resides in Asheville, NC where he freelances as a professional dancer, choreographer and composer. ... more

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