Une femme assise [English translation]

A woman is sitting on a carpet

Her meal is brewing in a grey kettle

Rings on her fingers, khol around her eyes,

silver rings around her arms

Her head shakes from right to left

moving, in great uncertainty

(Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear)

Wary of the unknown,

the alien, the unseen.

Wary, she watches over her tribe1.

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

Small burn scars on her golden fingers,

her bodice smeared with olive oil

Her tongue in her mouth,

A mouth you'd better not fall into

She does not know the alphabet

In her arms, the youngest son mumbles,

he puts his hand on her face,

his small head under her bared breast

She swings like a spring

so that he warms himself to sleep

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

A woman is sitting on a carpet,

her back against a roughcast wall

A hot tea cup

on a shaky chair

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

She goes through life sitting on her carpet,

like a jar filled with misfortune and endless love

1. meant as "her family"

• Artist:Riff Cohen