Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time Close to the gardens of broken shadows, We do what prisoners do, And what the jobless do: We cultivate hope. A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent For we closely watch the hour of victory: No night in our night lit up by the shelling Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us In the darkness of cellars. If you had contemplated the victim’s face And thought it through, you would have remembered your mother in the Gas chamber, you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way to find one’s identity again. The siege is a waiting period Waiting on the tilted ladder in the middle of the storm. Alone, we are alone as far down as the sediment Were it not for the visits of the rainbows. We have brothers behind this expanse. Excellent brothers. They love us. They watch us and weep. Then, in secret, they tell each other: Ah! if this siege had been declared... They do not finish their sentence: Don’t abandon us, don’t leave us. Our losses: between two and eight martyrs each day. And ten wounded. And twenty homes. And fifty olive trees... Added to this the structural flaw that Will arrive at the poem, the play, and the unfinished canvas. A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved For my clothing is drenched with his blood. It is up to the soul to come down from its mount And on its silken feet walk By my side, hand in hand, like two longtime Friends who share the ancient bread And the antique glass of wine May we walk this road together And then our days will take different directions: I, beyond nature, which in turn Will choose to squat on a high-up rock. In the state of siege, time becomes space Transfixed in its eternity In the state of siege, space becomes time That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow. The martyr encircles me every time I live a new day And questions me: Where were you? Take every word You have given me back to the dictionaries And relieve the sleepers from the echo’s buzz. The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty! And in what remains of the dawn, I walk toward my exterior And in what remains of the night, I hear the sound of footsteps inside me. My friends are always preparing a farewell feast for me, A soothing grave in the shade of oak trees A marble epitaph of time And always I anticipate them at the funeral: Who then has died...who? Writing is a puppy biting nothingness Writing wounds without a trace of blood. Our cups of coffee. Birds green trees In the blue shade, the sun gambols from one wall To another like a gazelle The water in the clouds has the unlimited shape of what is left to us Of the sky. And other things of suspended memories Reveal that this morning is powerful and splendid, And that we are the guests of eternity. Mahmoud Darwish
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:16:43 +0000
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