A Homeland Built in Language

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother,
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood,
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up,
To make a single word: Homeland…

– Mahmoud Darwish

…

Palestinian poet and activist Mahmoud Darwish died earlier this month at the age of 67, three days after undergoing heart surgery in Houston, Texas. Darwish was known for many years as the national poet of Palestine and was hugely popular throughout the Arab world. His collections Leaves of Olive (1964) and Lover From Palestine (1966) made his reputation as a poet of resistance. When Darwish was 22, his poem ‘Identity Card’, addressed to an Israeli policeman (‘Write down!/I am an Arab/And my identity card number is fifty thousand…’), became a rallying cry of defiance and prompted his house arrest in 1967 when it was made into a protest song. Darwish was buried in Ramallah in the West Bank, next to Ramallah’s Cultural Palace, where he had frequently given poetry readings to massive crowds.

To read more about Mahmoud Darwish and hear him recite some of his poems in Arabic, visit www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/introduction.htm