Live Encounters Poetry & Writing August 2025
Judi, poems by Roshan Ali Jaan.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Judi*
My soul plunges into the sand
I continue walking towards the shore
Alongside the trembling dawn
God’s wind from Judi
A mountain reciting the grass’s prayer to morning’s face
Cranes leaning into the air
With their verdant sighs
A river yawns..
Propping itself on sunset’s stairs
Here slept the partridge
Here drowned the rose of love in desire’s ecstasy
Sparrows steal seeds from between my bare feet
I waft with the wind, a passionate lily
I gather the foam of hope with two hands of forgetfulness-thorn
I scatter the green, quivering air
I am the traveler on lost ships
Caressing the wave’s caprice for a heart hunting shores
* Judi is Mount Judi, where Noah’s ark came to rest.
Melancholy
The heart trembles, stumbling over details like a basil seedling
And the panting trees like my swaying shadow in absence
Like a hand that returned fingerless from the forums of speech
Like bleeding dreams
Exiles pledge me to weeping
Like the seed of ancestors, longing ignites on my lips
A long night converses with lineages of return
Shedding silver splendor upon the pain of directions
Like an ember soaring with meanings
An eyelid leaning on the desire to weep
The passion of the wounded
That which waves to a fleeing childhood
A voice piercing the dreaming distances
Is what remains for me of melancholy.
Another Day
Like an angel’s shiver, you awaken the grass’s charms
Beside a broken branch defying April
This is an evening for love
I will open a new window for the air
Acacia trees and stars
The bronze handle of the captive door
I whisper the murmur of rain in your ear
Dreams overflowing, and all time is mine
I return to you once more
And in the unique moment, I will embrace the water lily
Before it settles to sleep in the wakeful night
Here you melt with longing in the chalice of the sacred
Drunk am I
And surrounded by the flower of forgetfulness
© Roshan Ali Jaan
Roshan Ali Jaan is a Syrian poet, born in Damascus and residing in Sweden. A graduate of the Faculty of Education, she worked in the field of education in Syrian schools. She has published a poetry collection titled Amber of Darkness, and a second collection titled Requiem of the Rose is currently in print. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Bengali, and Kurdish.