With which I linger along
We both are to die in this accursed exile
So why father
Do you beget a blind gypsy horse
That doesn’t know, in this vast land,
Where to die?^117Nevertheless, to identify with al-Macarrl, or to take the blind poet and
cynic as mask, does not necessarily entail futility and loss, for the mere act of
poetic articulation signifies belonging to a culture, its specific identity and
formation. Al-Macarrlhimself never tired of tracing his inventory in shreds
and texts, contemporary and antecedent. Whenever physical death draws
closer to al-Baymtl’s Macarrl, poetic lore pours forth its images, in terms of
portents or pleasant signs:
My death is everywhere
And ravings ascend from graves
Who is to make a fire
In this dreary night
Who is to scream in the rooms of the house?
(Ibid. 10)Such juxtaposition between an imprisoning bodily form and an unlimited
legendary horizon creates the in-between space where the very cry grows into
a poem, imbued with greater yearning for release from the prison-house of
the body:
Set me free father from this cage
For my prisons are many
And my suffering long.In this argument, al-Baymtl’s Macarrlmask may well serve as the bridge
between the inner yearning, the esoteric personal agony, and the practiced
textual fusion into exilic poetry.
What al-Baymtldraws on and feels at home with are texts by renowned
exiles. They have made a community of exiles, and their poetry offers at least
that much. Indeed, this is the focus of al-Baymtl’s dedications to Rafael
Alberti (1902–1999), who returned to Spain in 1977, Federico García
Lorca (1899–1936), Nazim Hikmet (1902–1963), and Antonio Machado
(1875–1939).^118 As figures, they grow also into symbols with strong conno-
tations of dynamic international solidarity. Al-Baymtlis no longer in need of
ENVISIONING EXILE