Taghrid Bou Merhi
KNOCKING ON EMPTINESS
Have you ever sat with nothingness?
Face to face, your fingers tapping on the edge of its features, while it remains oblivious to what you're doing?
Have you ever looked at its empty mouth, moving without sound,
while you listen intently like a fool, without understanding a word of what it's saying?
Let’s suppose the two of you sat together at some time, in some place,
let’s suppose you’re both in a Picasso painting.
It’s on the right side of the canvas, and you’re on the left, it calls out from where it is, and you stare, bound, at the sky.
While you are in this state, the hands of the clock stop. Time vanishes, and so does the place!
As if you’re both in the grip of a mirage, as if the unseen is whispered to take the place as a sign of night.
I don’t blame you,
maybe it has taken you into its elliptical orbit.
Likewise, I don’t blame it, it always acts without intention or prior warning!
If only a miracle could happen, Far from myth and the legends of old,
If time could stop before the predictions of astrologers,
If the orbits and stars could collide outside the Richter scale!
If I could close my eyes, and not see the nothingness in nothing!
Perhaps spacetime would give birth to me again, and I would be a sign of salvation and deliverance!
Perhaps we would reshape the heavens with a drop of mixed fluids and cling to an umbilical cord that connects us to the nebula!
If fate decreed that the belly of nothingness would sleep and not wake, like the people of the cave, if it would drown like the people of Noah in the flood!
If a certain sorrow could occur and save my soil from fear and anxiety!
Then, under the pretext of death, something would rain upon nothingness, filling the gaps of emptiness, and they would both die together in a funeral dance.
To bury the abyss of death, you strip off the cloak of nothingness, tear its robe, and roam through the throat of silence.
The tongues of arteries tear apart, and the distances between you two stagger!
In a moment of mirage,
you may retreat to the abandonment of soul and body.
You may die sixty graves and fall into a barren desert!
You both try to cling to a strand of vague conversation, or to a braid of fleeing silence, or to a phantom of a shadow!
You both fall, you both collapse together,
It chases you, and you chase it
As if it is captivated by you, and you are torn by its enchantment!
You argue together, you both listen to a reckless misstep.
It masters knocking on the door of your pulse
And your pulse knows nothing but the knock of emptiness!
©® TAGHRID BOU MERHI - LEBANON - BRASIL
Brief Biography:
TAGHRID BOU MERHI is a Lebanese poet, writer, author, essayist, editor, journalist, and translator residing in Brazil. She writes poetry, prose, children's stories, articles, essays and critical studies. She holds a degree in Law and is an Arabic language teacher for non-native speakers, as well as a development trainer at the Sawa Development Association. She leads the translation departments of eight Arab magazines and AZAHAR POETIC in Spain.
Her global roles include advisory positions in literary translation for the Levantine Writers Platform and the World Union of Arab Intellectuals. She serves as a global poetry advisor for CCTV in China and acts as an ambassador for several organizations, including the Global Organization for Creativity for Peace, the World Union of Writers and Artists, and the International Creativity and Humanities Fellowship. She was selected as one of the 50 Asian women who made a significant impact on the history of modern literature.She was selected as one Of top 20 internacional journalist's from LEGACY CROWN.
Taghrid has received multiple international awards, such as the Nizar Sartawi International Creativity Award (2021), the SahityaPata Kazi Nazrul Birth Anniversary Award (2022), the Najji Naaman Literary Award (2023), and the Zhang Nian Cup Award( First place) (2023). She has also served twice as an international judge for the Walt Whitman Contest (2023-2024). Her work has been translated into 48 languages and featured on radio programs and literary platforms worldwide.
She is the author of 23 books, has translated 32, written 96 articles, and contributed to over 70 Arabic books and 90 international works. Her poetry and prose have been studied by literary critics and read globally on platforms such as Andromeda Radio and Umro Radio. Taghrid has participated in numerous cultural seminars and festivals, most recently the 2023 Arab Poetry Festival dedicated to Gibran Khalil Gibran.
