In the Love of Omdurman

Mahjoub Kaballo

That flower is a cooing pigeon
It is no miracle that this beautiful human can fly
The miracle is that he does not fly

Just as the word "rose" automatically invokes poetry, the word "poetry" evokes childhood. It is, as I see, a constant attempt to recover the freshness of existence, which has just emerged from possibility to realization—golden, magical, eternal, not overshadowed by any threat, or, as the poets called it, the lost paradise. So, I will speak as a careless student in the eyes of my academic teachers about the root of poetry: childhood.

Well, then. I befriended a slender, graceful silver path like an Ottoman scimitar on the grassy page from the Shambat-Abi Rouf ferry terminal to the giant botanical truck station, and I am still searching for that path, or barely finding it in the drawers of the painters.

Then I saw, literally, not metaphorically, girls of the fairies engaged in a game of "jump rope" in the courtyard of the houses dormitory, stirring up the rope and fruits that settle on our nightly covers. I have drawn nectars that taste of windows, and eaten that taste of outings.

I used to hear the lions roar before sunrise, coming from the zoo across the Nile to the west bank (I later learned that Herodotus called it the Libyan bank, sometimes the Pagan bank, and I noticed that my skin color changed at each bank). I did not only hear that roar, but I also saw it as a cloud similar to the line made by the morning mosquito spray plane. My sense of hearing translated what it picked up into visuals.

It seems that what Gaston Bachelard called the enchanted castle of childhood arises from the unity of the senses that allow us to see sounds and to taste strands like coffee. Therefore, one can possess a wealth of knowledge, science, philosophy, or religion, without being affected by the syndrome of poetry, because it simply lies in the unity of the senses towards approaching beings—absolute beings that fall within the ontology of existence. The poet is merely a producer of expression for this unity of the senses, and the Arabic language has rewarded him by calling him a "poet," aspiring to the elevation of his sensitivity.

From the museum of childhood, the creatures of the biological ladder emerge, with their unique knot of insects in their colorful presence. We used to receive them with our sympathetic senses that translate smells into colors, sounds into smells, and colors into fires or springs. I particularly mention my favorite childhood insect, the colorful "Kandandar" beetle, the cow of the henna tree, as we used to call it. This elegant lady enriched my childhood affection to the point of desire. Her colors, her flutter, and especially her fragrance, for she smells of her henna plant habitat. This may be the reason for our love for the leaves of that tree. The henna beetle is Cupids priestess and the childrens teacher in emotional education matters.

What diminishes the sensuality of this beauty is the austerity of the color of the grasshopper saint called "Prophets horse" in her poor green robe, which forms her family and food for days and has a short life after falling into the clutches of childish malice and being crucified on a thorn. This represents an early sin that the elders turn a blind eye to, or perhaps it is one of the faces of pastoral education.

We didnt care about the butterflies soaring on our popular trees of neem and acacias, and we didnt hesitate to put them on the stake to enjoy their final flutter.

What about the bird? There was a bird at that time that encapsulates all the splendor of flying. A real Simorgh. I used to imagine its figure while ascending the ladder of dreams of my Sufi master Farid al-Din al-Attar, which is the peacock of my lady Sharifa Fatima, the daughter of my master Al-Mahjoub, and my lady Nafisa. I wonder why humans do not undertake to teach children the gait of this noble being in school education.

This bird had a short seasonal territory above the expanse of the Beit al-Mal district, where it landed miraculously on the pomegranate tree in the middle of our house courtyard before soaring back to its position in the Merghani Palace. There is also the collared dove with the color of "rainwater" and its eloquent, rhymed remembrance of its Lord.

The emptiness of the Suwar (the Sur in Omdurman vernacular), the current place of the lieutenants, was our wide playground for our raids. It was a valley for professional hunting of rabbits, foxes, and a few deer not long ago.

Our ancestors say that it is the remnants of the herds of gazelles descending from Karari and Al-Markhiyat, passing through their pens to return to the Nile. All of this is enveloped in colors from the reading atlas of God, a sturdy cover of the golden nonsense of the elders that translates childrens consciousness into the energy that may only be suitable for producing metaphors in the imagination of some victims of the poetry angels.

When I look at that time from the point of now, I see it connected to ancient times. Omdurman was like a Pharaonic village. The Nile, mud houses, kerosene lamps, lote trees (dom), and sycamores all leave no room for anything but Pharaonism. Perhaps this Pharaonism was the key to my poetic imagination:

At my bridge
Which people call
The Hungry Kings Bridge
The sun cast to me pieces of tempting mirage

This imagination also did not lack a touch of Moses:
I have grazed my herds and offspring on the plains of your neglect
Threatened by your attention
A touch of Pharaonism, and a touch of Moses form a hidden root under the glorious canopy of the final Mohammed, the beginning of all beauty, its setting, and its delegation
Yes, my Lord, I am the one who grazes the jasmine that grows in the wake of your steps.

Image: Omdurman painting by Professor Kamala Isaac