Diaries of a Palestinian Wound |
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 Mahmoud Darwish We shall remain wakeful, we remember! Al-Carmel lives in us, like a wonder: On our eyelids lives And the waters of our river do pass Through the texture of our native soil; We write no poetry, but we do toil: Twenty years before the June disaster, We lived in fetters, dear beloved sister! Those sad shadows that are darkling Upon your eyes, to eliminate sparkling Happiness, are but our long, dark night Against which we continued to fight. When you sang, dear skylark, |
Jan 10, 2010
Diaries of a Palestinian Wound
Deep - Rooted We Stay
Deep - Rooted We Stay |
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 Tawfiq Zaiyyad On an olive tree I shall engrave The tragic secrets of my grave, And everything bitter I've tasted, And all the things plundered, wasted: The trees uprooted, the small village Surrendered to fire and pillage, The story of every crushed wild flower, Every demolished house, grove and bower. No war can ever kill the spirit of the free! This the savage invaders fail to see: A thousand intruders come and go, And melt like flakes of snow, While in our immortal country we stay Deep-rooted, dead or alive; we have our way. |
Composing poetry and verse
Composing poetry and verse |
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 Mahmoud Darwish In the coffins of my beloved ones, I sing For my little ones’ swings: My father’s blood is mine, so wait. Day is the end of the night. My father’s friend, his scythe, lies there, For me to water with stars’ rays. To ready it for the harvest to reap Every evil in a heap. My job, Sir? Composing poetry and verse. My pay? None but your grace. You don’t read? Pardon me sir, for newspapers Songs, and anthems are your echo proper. So that the sun shine longer, Sink deep in the earth, my friend, and tender, Like trees, deep roots, and then give to the clouds A trunk, a branch, and fruit. |
Children Bearing Stones
Children Bearing Stones |
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 Nizar Qabbani With stones in their hands, they defy the world and come to us like good tidings. They burst with anger and love, and they fall while we remain a herd of polar bears: a body armored against weather. Like mussels we sit in cafes, one hunts for a business venture one for another billion and a fourth wife and breasts polished by civilization. One stalks one traffics in arms one seeks revenge in nightclubs one plots for a throne, a private army, and princedom. Ah, generation of betrayal, of surrogate and indecent men, generations of leftovers, we'll be swept away-- never mind the slow pace of history-- by the children bearing rocks. |
Birds die in Galilee
Birds die in Galilee |
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 Mahmoud Darwish Translated by: Denys Johnson-Davies/The Music of Human Flesh. -We shall meet awhile After a year After two years And generation… And she threw into the camera Twenty gardens And the birds of And continued searching beyond the sea For a new meaning to truth. -My homeland is clothes-lines For the handkerchiefs of blood Shed every minute. And I stretched out on the shore As sands and palm trees. She does not know… O Rita! Death and I granted you The secret of joy wilting at the customs gate And we were rejuvenated, Death and I, In your first front And in window of your house. Death and I are two faces- Why now do you flee from my face, Why now do you flee? Why now do you flee from What makes wheat the earth’s eyelashes, from What makes the volcano another face to jasmine? Why now do you flee? Nothing used to tire me at night but her silence When it was stretching out before the door Like the street, like the old quarter. Let it be what you want, Rita: The silence an axe Or frame for stars Or a climate for the tree’s labour pains. I sip kisses From the blade of knives. Come, let’s join the massacre! Like unwanted leaves The flocks of birds fell Into the wells of time. And I pick up the blue wings. Rita, I am he in whose skin The shackles etch A likeness of the homeland. |
Psalm 6
Psalm 6 |
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 Mahmoud Darwish Translated by: Denys Johnson-Davies/The Music of Human Flesh. The trees of my country make a practice of greenness, While I practice memory. The lost voice in the wilderness Turns away towards the sky, and kneels: O clouds! Are you returning? I am not so sad, And yet those who do not know trees Do not love birds. And he knows no surprises Who makes a habit of lying. I am not so sad, And yet he knows not lying Who has not known fear. I am not so shrunk And yet it is the trees that are tall. Ladies and gentlemen, I love birds And know trees. I know surprises Because I have not known lying. I am bright as truth and the dagger And thus I ask you: Fire at the birds That I may describe the trees. Stop the That I may describe Stop That I may describe Stop Barada That I may describe And stop me from talking That I may describe myself. |
Psalm 8
Psalm 8 |
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 Mahmoud Darwish Translated by: Denys Johnson-Davies/The Music of Human Flesh. O country whose names are known by mood, By history's whips, By history's prisons, By history's places of exile. O you who have fallen into captivity in every age, Why do you determine your from with such a venture? Why announce yourself As the foetus of the world? And why are you beautiful to the point of suicide? And more than that: Why do you not announce your disavowal of me That I may abstain from death? O country cruel as drowsiness, Tell me just the once: Our love is over, Tat I may be capable of death and departure. I envy the winds that suddenly turn away From the ashes of my forefathers. I envy the thoughts concealed in the memory of the martyrs, And I envy your sky hidden in children's eyes. And yet I do not envy myself. You spread along my body like sweat, You spread into my body like lust. Like invaders you occupy my memory, And like light you occupy my brain. Die that I may mourn you, Or be my wife that I may known betrayal Just the once. |
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