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translated by Sulafa Hijjawi
Tawfiq Zayyad
The Olive Tree
Because I do not knit wool*
Because I am always hunted
And my house is always raided.
Because I cannot own a piece of paper,
I shall carve my memoirs
On the home yard olive tree.
I shall carve bitter reflections,
Scenes of love and yearnings,
For my stolen orange grove
And the lost tombs of my dead.
I shall carve all my strivings
For the sake of remembrance
For the time when I’ll drown them
In the avalanche of triumph
I shall carve the serial number
Of every stolen piece of land
The place of my village on the map
And the blown up houses,
And the uprooted trees
And every bloom that was crushed
And all the names of the experts in torture
The names of the prisons.....
I shall carve dedications
To memories threading down to eternity
To the blooded soil of Deir Yasin
And Kufur Qassem.
I shall carve the sun’s beckoning
And the moon’s whisperings
And what a skylark recalls
At a love deserted well.
For the sake of remembrance,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy
And all the stages of Al- Nakbah
On the home yard olive tree!
_________
TPB's note: from translator: * Reference to Madame Lafarge, who used to knit the names of the traitors and send them to the French revolutionaries during the French Revolution. Source: http://www.sulafahijjawi.ps/PoetryOfResistance_Sulafa_Hijjawi.pdf
Mahmoud Darwish
Identity Card
Write down
I am an Arab
My card number is 50,000
I have eight children
The ninth will come next summer
Are you angry?
Write down
I am an Arab
I cut stone with comrade laborers
My children are eight
I squeeze the rock
To get a loaf,
A dress and a book
For them.
But I do not plead for charity at your door
And do not feel small
In front of your mansion
Are you angry?
Write down
I am an Arab
I am a name without a title
Patient, in a country
Where every body else is very angry
My roots sink deep before the birth of time
And before the beginning of the ages,
Before the time of Cypress and olives
Before the beginnings of grass,
My father belonged to the family of the plough
Was not of grand stock
My grand father was a farmer, without a pedigree
He taught me the grandeur of the sun
Before reading books
My house is a hut
Made of reed and stalk
Are you satisfied with my rank?
I am a name without a title!
Write down
I have been robbed of my ancestral vines
And the piece of land I used to farm with all my children
Nothing remained for us and for my grand children
Except these rocks
Will your government take them?
So it is
Write down
At the top of the first page
I hate nobody
I do not steel any thing
But when I become hungry
I eat the flesh of my marauders
So beware....beware
My hunger and fury!
Write down
At the top of the first page
I hate nobody
I do not steel any thing
But when I become hungry
I eat the flesh of my marauders
So beware....beware
My hunger and fury!
_________
TPB's note: Source: http://www.sulafahijjawi.ps/PoetryOfResistance_Sulafa_Hijjawi.pdf
Sameeh Al Qassem
A Letter From Prison
It pains me, Mother
That you burst in tears
When my friends come
Asking about me
But I believe, mother
That the splendor of life
Is born in my prison
And I believe that my last visitor
Will not be an eyeless bat
Coming at midnight.
My last visitor must be daylight.
_________
TPB's note: Source: http://www.sulafahijjawi.ps/PoetryOfResistance_Sulafa_Hijjawi.pdf
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