Yusuf (Suhayl Saadi)

Joseph, Yusuf, Yosef, Yosep, Josip, Iosephus, Giuseppe, Eòsaph, perfectly righteous, master of dreams, servant of God, grand vizier of yarns, the man in the well, through song you rise over the horizon, a giant figure in white. Yusuf, possessed of such beauty, no being can gaze upon you and remain a stone. Yuya, builder of Memphis, Moon of Canaan, the Loved One of the razbin geddisseh, you render song even unto the wolf. I cast pebbles into the stream and watch as the water turns to a mirror of your visage.

And she saw that Joseph was rising from the snow as though from a blank page and that in one hand was a rod of gold and that he was cloaked in a ketonet that possessed the quality of silk and the ketonet was of many colours and each of the colours revealed a secret. And behind all secrets, were the songs of the hod-carrier, Almalaak Jibraeel, the angelic saviour of Yosef in the well, and the songs of the Karubiyyun and Seraphiel, of Hazrats Daoud, Sulaiman and their massed, jinn orchestras.

Guided by the Archangel Rafael, the arefeh sought out the dark well at the world’s end, Giuseppe’s Well that lies beyond the White Mountains in the place beneath the Pole Star, the well that some say is more like a dark cistern.

I danced like a bear and sang like a monkey and in that City of a Thousand Days that had been built by Hazrat Yusuf, the great luminary of Misra, I told tales to the walls of the Crimson Church in the languages of termites, griffins and salamanders. Alf-yaum, alf-yaum, alf-yaum… the lost dream of Iosephus.

Yusuf, the soul, the one who needs no key.

Pour citer cette ressource :

Suhayl Saadi, Yusuf (Suhayl Saadi), La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), juin 2014. Consulté le 22/11/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/entretiens-et-textes-inedits/yusuf-suhayl-saadi-