The Beauty of the Night

 Poem by Fatima Bouzhar
Translated from Tamazight by Hafida Bouhmid

My night

Is the tender shoulder

My night

Is the one to whom I reveal my heartaches

With whom I share my grievances

About the pain I have witnessed

In the absence of light

In the night’s arms

My eyes let fall

Their tears

My night is my blanket

And the father

I no longer have

My night

Is a wedding of words

In which we waltz our feelings

and sing a lullaby of our griefs

My night

Is the one on whom I call

And responds “present”

It becomes my father

but day makes me an orphan again.