The Two Twilights

Written by Touria Nakkouch

The Two Twilights: Evening and Morning
(In Tribute to Baudelaire)

I. Evening Twilight in Rabat

Luminous twilight descends slowly on the ancient city
Ending honest labour and starting labours of uncertainty;
The doors of heaven close their lids on petty night quirks
Save for receding stars and, nearer down, cackling storks.
Old dwellings now turned to cover-up Maisons D'hôtes
Open their scarlet doors to pretty girls and Imareti shots;
The dealer, the pimp and the mediator keep a busy body
 Embarked on commerce of drugs, sex, and filthy money;
Their underground rule will out- power the State until dawn
When nosy Sun reveals nude navels and snoring bloated men.

The ghosts of former Dynasties roam above ancient sites 
Watching mutely over the ruins of their past victorious fights:
The Almoravids torment the Oudaya Kasbah and the Walls
The Marinyids mourn their Chellah Gardens and graveyards
The Sâadi architects proudly eye their high Andalusi Ssours
And recall former Abou-Regreg state, set up by their Maures;
How the latter - sailors and warriors were those "Salé pirates"-
Protected the city from European fleets and inner Bourghwates!
The Alaouit kings, from their military chief to their castle designer
Have eyed, for over two centuries, an unfinished Hassan Tower.

Walking along the newly-terraced alley of  the main Avenue,
I shed these thoughts off and held a more recent past in view:
"Keep off, my soul, from such illusions of permanence,
And feed on your youthful loves and college turbulence;
See how fluorescent twilight paints Rabat's old wall
With the gaudy sounds and colours of a Jazz festival;
See how those immortal storks soar overhead and, under,
How the busy watchman keeps night life from spilling over.
See how the capital puts aside its secret records with a shrug
And lies down to sleep under the Andalusi airs of Bouregreg.

II. Morning Twilight in East Agadir

The day broke on my garden in frosty colours.
The thrush poked its head in sudden jerks
As the lark stood guessing at the day's humours.
A weary spider, back from her long night hunt
Trod heavily home; her legs silently seeking
The silken quilt of her magical bed when,
Suddenly, she was pecked by a hungry beak:
One life chant interrupting another!
The white sun, its rays starting to leak,
Stood, an evident witness to the sacrifice.

A few miles away, a sulphurous cloud,
Octopus-like, hung over the next district;
Its spongy tentacles sucking the population
With its machines, dreams and progeny,
In an endless, windless motion of
Reeking bodies, cheap sex, and allergy.
Contained in sleep by the cool, black night,
The monster was now shaking itself up:
The morning heat steamed its threat into matter
Your honourable host? The public garbage dump!

I stood stunned, pondering this other tale of two cities,
And pitied, for the untimely barbecue, the East Gadiris.

© Touria Nakkouch