Hedy Habra

When Fireflies Speak the Language of Love

After Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kusama

Aren't these flickering lights at dusk a magical gift of hot summer nights, 

also called lantern fly, sparkling like fallen stars on hot summer nights?

As thousands of lanterns set afloat to reach departed souls, guiding spirits

through the darkness, they speak in silent sign language on hot summer nights.

I think of candles lit inside votive lotus-shaped lanterns as I watch rows of

quivering lights desperately glued onto window panes on hot summer nights.

In an intermittent flutter, an electric shock echoing my musings, fireflies speak

the language of love, an inaudible music in the stillness of hot summer nights.

With bright names formed around light and fire, luciole, lucciole, luciérnaga, 

pygolampída, Yínghuǒchóng, zubabat el nar, they dance on hot summer nights,

echo lovers' wordless encounters with all their variations, conjuring up lost faces,

recalling all the shining promises my younger self dreamt of on hot summer nights 

 

First published in Nür Mélange a Ghazal Anthology

Or Did You Ever Wonder What It’s Like To Have Hot Flashes?

After The Souls of the Mountain by Remedios Varo

Imagine a nebulous landscape covered with budding volcanoes 

See yourself emerge from one of its peaks head heavy with slumber

Gasping in the rarefied air you enter a liminal space where unlucky few

Forever trapped past conception are condemned to parthenogenesis 

See yourself emerge from one of its peaks head heavy with slumber

Think of your skin as a primed canvas permeable to imprints

Forever trapped past conception, condemned to parthenogenesis 

See how the change of seasons leaves indelible marks all over your body

Think of your skin as a primed canvas, permeable to imprints, 

You yearn for the sight of a veil billowing on a deserted deck’s caravel 

See how the change of seasons leaves indelible marks all over your body

Like the sfumato created by the passage of a candle over moist paper or canvas 

You yearn for the sight of a veil billowing on a deserted deck’s caravel 

Suddenly a cooling current lassoes drifts unfurling into ashen flames 

Like the sfumato created by the passage of a candle over moist paper or canvas 

Or a haze hiding a palimpsest of thoughts carried by windswept fumes 

First published by Rusted Radishes

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023) 

Bricolage

Go every day a little deeper

into the woods, collect acorns,

twigs, thorns, fallen leaves,

pine needles, a fern’s curl,

a bird’s nest, a lost feather,

spring air, hot, humid air, a raindrop,

a touch of blue, a ripple,

and why not the hush

of your steps over moss,

the trembling of leaves

at dusk against black bark?

Put it all in a bag and shake it:

you will retrace your steps

within the clearing, hear frightened

flights, watch the rain darken the deck,

flatten oak leaves, answer the root’s mute prayer.

First published by Grafemas: Letras Femeninas

From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)