Truth about Me

Nineb Lamassu

Plains and meadows
Peaks, valleys, caves and highlands:
Are stamped with my feet.

My footsteps
Right from the dawn of an era
And birth of time
Are portrayed on the face of threshing floors and fields

I and no one else
Right here and nowhere else
Fell in love with life
dreamt
And saw the need
I stroked my ploughshare
Into the cleaves of the earth
Planted my heartbeats
In the womb of my land
And civilisation was born

I and no one else
Right here and nowhere else
wrestled with the river
It wanted to quarrel
But i broke its back
My unyielding will
Overcame its will
I learned its tricks
I split its midriff (banks) 
So the earth is watered
And my orchards quenched
So that the produce is multiplied
And the fruits are ripened

Right here
I modelled my mud
It was in my palm
And not in somebody else’s
It turned into a tablet

Right here indeed
I married the tablet to the reed
Through my reed and not somebody else’s
The intellect made love to it.

I sprinkled it with wisdom
They landed upon its cheeks
Just like kisses
The beauty of its appearance became manifest 
Through my cuneiform signs

It was my arm and not somebody else’s
That strake its punch
Into the chest of the mountain
And shook its foundations
It was my grip
That tore its heart
Crushed, burned and mixed it
Through this gypsum I plastered my walls
And built settlements, cities and lands

Mud
It was I that laid it into moulds
Brick upon brick
I built temples and settlements

Yes it is I, who else but I

Today,
The mountains attest
And the valleys recall
Whose ploughshare
Pierced the virginity of the earth
And planted the seed in its womb

God does reveal
If he is not asleep and snoring
Christ will not deceive
If he is not out drinking in a supper banquet with his friends
Do ask them,
Ask the sun and the moon too
Ask them all:

Who learned the tricks and split the midriffs (banks) of these rivers
Who moulded the tablet and plastered the walls
brick upon brick:
Built settlements and temples
Ask
Whose envied poplars cannot be faulted?   
Who, made a fence
And drew borders
Ask
Whose land, is heaven and faultless
Ask!
Who is it but I...
That moulded this earth and the very same earth moulded me.   



Click here to listen to an mp3 recording of Fran Hazelton reading the poem in English


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1. English Translation & mp3   2. Assyrian Original   3. Photograph
Nineb Lamassu

Nineb Lamassu was born in the ancient Assyrian city of Karkha D’Beth Sluq better known with its corrupted version which survives in Arabic as Kirkuk. At the age of nine, he fled Iraq together with his family, with the exception of his father who was arrested shortly thereafter. The family fled to Iran, and from there on Lamassu’s life has been an endless journey that has taken him to many countries but never back to his homeland. Lamassu has lived in Iran, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and London UK, where he lives now with his wife and son.

According to Lamassu: “My life has been like poetry squeezed in a bottle carried by numerous waves to various destinations but I can’t seem to find the one wave that takes me back to my precise point of departure, my birthplace. All my poetry has been supplications and struggles in order to return to the beginning. It is in the memory of the first nine years of my life that I find solace.”

Lamassu started writing poetry in his mother’s tongue “Assyrian” very early in his life, at the age of 13 one of his poems won a prize in New Zealand, and was recited in the Assyrian radio programme in Wellington. Lamassu’s poetry demonstrate his love of his mother tongue, an ancient language which still survives, despite the persecutions suffered by Assyrians under suppressive regimes, and despite attempts at linguicide. Lamassu’s first book was published in 2000 in Sydney under the title of “Four Heartbeats”, and his poetry has been published in most respected Assyrian journals and magazines. He is currently working on his second anthology of poetry under the title “Flaming Anthems”.

Lamassu has participated in various poetry festivals, and recently he recited a some of his poems and their translations in the British Museum as part of the Museum’s: Babylon: Myth and Reality exhibition. This evening of poetry will be repeated again on the 27th of February 2009.