I come from there
and remember,
I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother
and a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends and a prison.
I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.
I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.
I have a moon past the peak of words.
I have the godsent food of birds and an olive tree beyond the kent
of time.
I have traversed the land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there, I return the sky to its mother when for its
mother the
sky cries, and I weep for a returning cloud to know me.
I have learned the words of blood-stained courts in order to break
the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single
one:
Home
[Following his first return to his home in 1996,
Darwish reflected on the sorrow and longing he felt for his homeland,
and said "As long as my soul is alive no one can smother my
feeling of nostalgia to a country which I still consider as Palestine."
(see 'Poetical Myths of Mahmoud Darwish'). Mahmoud Darwish has published
over 30 poetry and prose collections. Translated into 35 languages,
his work is admired not only among Arabs but throughout the world.
He currently lives in Palestine.]
