And the snow falls
I was three years old in the year of independence of this country
I was six years old in the year of the Northern war
I was nine years old in the cholera year
I was twelve years old in the year of the great famine
I was fifteen years old in the year of the other war
When the jihadist shells fell, I was fifty-four years old
I chose between the coffin and the suitcase, and I left with my daughter and my son
I left my city like fifty-four other people on a barge
Ten years have passed and every night shells fall in my dreams
Every night sitting on a suitcase
I'm also waiting
and the snow falls
Only snow falls.
(Translated from Spanish by Virginia Fernandez Collado)
This time of mine
I write poems to have a place where I can breathe
As I keep the windows closed and the lights off
I see better the dragonfly and my childhood running around in a field of wheat.
I write a poem to have a path of wheat and mountains
While on my ways I walk and look there at infinity
the flight of the herons and the floating clouds comes closer to me
I'm not sorry for being just from a world of words without rhymes
This time of mine burns for its rivers and its forests
Where will man live if with the poem he does not make heaven and wings?
(Translated from Spanish by Virginia Fernandez Collado)
Goose
After the nap, I water bougainvilleas, palm trees, and weeping willows.
When the sun went down a butterfly fluttered among the flowers,
a reddish dragonfly was flying over the fish pond
I go down to the chicken coop with the remains of tomatoes, carrot, potatoes
The silent geese were still under the trees.
They look at me, I look at them. We do not know each other.
What are we going to say among strangers?
Maybe they are so happy to be locked up here
like me from living in exile.
(Translated from Spanish by Virginia Fernandez Collado)
Author’s Bionote:
*Ismael Diadié Haidara (Timbuktu (Mali) 1957) is a librarian, historian, philosopher and poet who lives in Spain. He is currently the president of the Kati Fundation in Spain, and Director of Kati Fond in Mali, the most important Andalusian documentary legacy outside of Spain. Ismael, who went into exile in Spain from Mali after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, is the last descendant of Ali ben Ziyab al Kuti, a citizen of Toledo expelled from the city in 1468 and installed in Timbuktu. He is the author of several books, “Le statut du monde. Nécessité, possibilité et contingence chez Ibn Arabi”, Cordoue, 1992; “Yawdar Pasha y la conquista saudí del Songhay (1591-1599)” Instituto de Estudios almerienses, 1993 et Rabat 1996; “L’Espagne musulmane et l’Afrique subsaharienne”, Editions Donniya, Bamako, 1997; “Les Juifs à Tombouctou”, Editions Donniya, Bamako, 1999 ; (en colaboración con Manuel Pimentel) “Los otros Españoles”, mr ediciones, Madrid, 2004 ; “Los últimos Visigodos”, rd editores, Sevilla, 2003 ; “Las lamentaciones del viejo Tombo”, Maremoto, Málaga, 2006 ; “Abana, Rihla”, Córdoba, Almuzara, 2006 ; “Monólogo de un carnero”, Árbol de Poe, Malaga, 2012; “Zimma”, Vaso Roto México, 2014, Madrid 2015 ; (en colaboración con Manuel Pimentel) “Tombuctú, Andaluces en la ciudad pérdida del Sáhara”, Almuzara,2015. “Une cabane au bord de l’eau”, ediciones del Genal, Málaga, 2015; “Sahel”, ediciones del Genal, Málaga, 2017; “Tebrae pour ma mère”, ediciones del Genal, Málaga, 2017; Diario de un bibliotecario de Tombuctú, Almazara, 2017; De Toledo a Tombuctú, conversaciones con Ismael Diadié Haidara (con Antonio Llaguno Rojas) Ginger Ape Books & Films; Edición, 2018. De la Sobriedad, Almuzara, Córdoba 2020. And also, he is a lecturer in France, Spain, Switzerland, Morocco, Mexico, Italy, Senegal, etc. His lecturers are related to the documentary legacy and history, poetry, medieval sciences, in several universities, Rabat University, Complutense Madrid´s University, Granada´s University, Almería University, Genova´s University, Turin´s University, Basilea´s University, Lyon´University, etc.