The Marshlands… The Breath of Water and the Memory of Clay

The Marshlands… The Breath of Water and the Memory of Clay

It is neither a pond nor a river, nor land soaked in waiting for drought. The marshlands… a water body that breathes through the mist hovering above it, through the sun that illuminates half of existence and leaves the other half drowned in shadow, through birds that know nothing of the sky but their own reflections, through canoes that never arrive—because they never truly departed.

Here, water is not silent; it is a liquid memory, a restless face, a flute echoing through the reeds as if it were the earth’s belated sigh. There, in the burka, the barhan lies still, flicking its tail in the water, observing the depths without drowning. Above the scattered reeds, the rukhiyawi stands like a question mark that awaits no answer, expecting nothing but the silent passage of a canoe, leaving a trail the waves erase within moments.

The mashhuf… a floating shadow, the memory of a hand carving a secret path between the reeds, watched by the mardi as he slices through the water the way dreams sever the last slumber, the way light carves its path upon the surface without leaving a single scratch. In the depths, where things remain unseen yet undeniably present, the shamblan settles, clinging to the earth, invisible until it finds itself ensnared in a net, until the fisherman hauls the ropes, and the water surrenders what was waiting to be discovered.

There, between clay and wind, between papyri that bend yet never break, between the scent of water interwoven with an inexplicable life, stands the earthen granary, not merely a storage vault, but a heart preserving the secrets of wheat, barley, and flour—just as the marshes guard the secrets of those who once passed through and never returned. Beside it, the clay drinking vessel hangs, not just a container, but the echo of thirst settling into the palm of a hand, the moment when clay touches a traveler’s lips, when water becomes more than mere water.

And at the edges of dusk, when light leans against the water before vanishing entirely, voices gather at the taswira. No one tells the stories—rather, the stories tell themselves. No one speaks of masmouta, mahroutha, or kubbat al-matal, yet their scent floats above the fire, over the smoke thick with untold tales, above a fuel that was never wood nor flame, but the remnants of time itself—dried, stacked, built into ceilings that shelter from the rain, preserved as the earth preserves the names of those who lived here, then became part of the marshes—their clay, their water, their birds that never leave but return every evening.

The marshlands do not write farewells, for water knows no loss. It does not inscribe absence but continuously reshapes all things, reforming the reeds, rearranging the mashhup upon the waves—reassembling everything in its own way.

The marshlands… not just a place, but a language spoken in water, in reeds, in the birds that perch upon the burka, then leave, only to return again.

~Firas Alwaily

United States of America