Travel Guide to the Forest of Meaning

What is poetry?
Vessel headed for no port

What is imagination?
The scent of reality

What is the face?
Port for the migration of tears

What is day?
A cage to trap sunlight

What is poverty?
A grave moving above ground


from Travel Guide to the Forest of Meaning
by Adonis (Ali Ahmed Said)
translated by Marilyn Hacker, via the French version of Venus Khoury-Ghata
appearing in Rattapallax 12, 2005