Grief, a Wolf,
December 31, 2024, by Olivia Elias,
translated from French by Jérémy Victor Robert
*
in these barbaric times….I live like a sick
person forced to save her energies consumed
by grief….a grief too big to fit into
a “normal” life….in a land where
Death doesn’t triumph on all screens
by lighting up giant phosphoric fireworks & piling up
corpses….during this period
of the year when tidy & nicely dressed kids are
unwrapping gifts adorned with ribbons
yesterday….grief came in like a wolf….leaving me
helpless….not knowing
what to do….how
a wolf that doesn’t feed only on bodies scattered
all over this otherworldly landscape
where nothing….but fire ice & nothingness….reign
*
fire….fed day & night by pyromaniacs….intoxicated
with destruction….blazing fire
that ignites heaven & earth….sparing nothing & no one
melting tents their occupants inside
transforming into living torches the wounded on a drip
with its devouring flames waging war
on newborns & children….whose promise of life has
no value & bodies are fungible
Human animals….who deserve their fate….they say
ice & nothingness….the white silence of the Mighty
over the new Khans’ crimes
the whiteness of their silence over our pain
their outraged protests reserved for others
the galactic indifference into which our cries fall
the cold that freezes the children shivering
in the tent
*
what to do….how
when the descendants of those
decimated on Europe’s ground choose
the executioner’s path
thinking they can save themselves by holding
our heads under water
an illusory dream that consumes their souls
& leads them to their loss
for blind force that doesn’t know any limit
is not force….but barbarism
& over the centuries will be told
the unconceivable….the unspeakable
the sacrifice taking place before everyone’s
eyes in this Ghetto of the Mediterranean
sealed on all sides
A poet from the Palestinian diaspora, born in Haifa in 1944, Olivia Elias writes in French. Until the age of 16, she lived in Lebanon, where her family took refuge in 1948, then in Montreal, where she studied and taught economics, before settling in France. Olivia Elias, only decided to publish in 2015 and her fourth collection Ce Mont qui regarde la mer (This Mount Overlooking the Sea) will be released in May 2025, in France. In 2022, she made her English debut with Chaos, Crossing, a bilingual and expanded version of Chaos, Traversée, followed a year later by the chapbook Your Name, Palestine (World Poetry, editor of both). Her poetry, translated into several languages, appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, in France and abroad. Marked by uprootedness and exile, it express a deep sense of solidarity with those banished and excluded from a dignified life. One of World Literature Today’s notable translations of 2022, Chaos, Crossing was finalist of the 2024 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation.
Jérémy Victor Robert is a translator between English and French who works and lives in his native Réunion Island. He published French translations of Sarah Riggs’ Murmurations (APIC, 2021, with Marie Borel), Donna Stonecipher’s Model City (joca seria, 2020), and Etel Adnan’s Sea & Fog (L’Attente, 2015). He recently translated Michael Palmer’s Little Elegies for Sister Satan, excerpts of which were posted online by Revue Catastrophes. Together with Sarah Riggs, he translated Olivia Elias’ Your Name, Palestine (World Poetry Books, 2023).