A Map of Absence Page 6

  in the frivolity of nonshape chewing its shadow ...

  a bound void ... encircled by its opposite.

  And there are two doves hovering

  over the roof of an abandoned room at the station

  and the station is a tattoo that has melted

  in the body of place. There are also two

  slim cypresses like two long needles

  that embroider a lemon-yellow cloud,

  and a tourist woman taking photos of two scenes:

  a sun that has stretched in the sea’s bed

  and a wooden bench that is vacant of the traveller’s sack

  (The hypocrite heavenly gold is bored with its own solidity)

  I stood at the station, not to wait for the train

  or for emotions hidden in the aesthetics of some faraway thing,

  but to know how the sea went mad and the place broke

  like a ceramic jar, to know where I was born and how I lived,

  and how the birds migrated to the north and south.

  Is what remains of me enough

  for the weightless imaginary to triumph

  over the corruption of fact?

  Is my gazelle still pregnant?

  (We have aged. O how we’ve aged, and the road to the sky is long)

  The train used to travel like a friendly snake from Syria

  to Egypt. Its whistle concealed

  the husky bleats of goats from the wolves’ hunger.

  As if it were a mythical time that tamed wolves to befriend us.

  Its smoke used to rise over the smoke of villages,

  which opened up and appeared like shrubs in nature.

  (Life is intuitive. Our homes and hearts have open doors)

  We were kind-hearted and naïve. We said: The land is our land

  and no external affliction will befall the map’s heart.

  And the sky is generous to us. We hardly spoke to each other

  in classical Arabic, save at prayer time and on holy nights.

  Our present serenaded us: Together we live!

  Our past amused us: I’ll come back if you need me!

  We were kind-hearted and dreamy, we didn’t see

  tomorrow steal the past, his prey, and leave ...

  (A while ago our present used to grow wheat and squash and make the wadi dance)

  I stood at the station at sunset: Are there still two women

  in one woman who is polishing her thigh with lightning?

  Two mythic enemy-friends and twins

  on the surface of wind, one who flirts with me, and another

  who wars with me? Has spilled blood ever broken

  a single sword, so I can say my first Goddess is still within me?

  (I believed my old song so I can disbelieve my reality)

  The train was a land ship docking ... it carried us to the realistic

  cities of our imagination whenever we were in need

  of innocent play with destiny. Train windows possess

  the magical in the ordinary: everything runs.

  Trees, ideas, waves, towers run

  behind us. And the lemon scent runs. The air and the rest

  of things run, and the longing

  to a mysterious faraway, and the heart, run.

  (Everything differed and agreed)

  I stood at the station, I was as abandoned as the timekeeper’s

  room there. I was a dispossessed man staring

  at his closet and asking himself: Was that

  mind, that treasure, mine? Was this

  damp lapis lazuli, humidity, and nightly dew, mine?

  Was I one day the butterfly’s pupil

  in fragility, and in audacity, and was I her mate

  in metaphor at times? Was one of those days

  mine? Or does memory fall ill also and catch a fever?

  (I see my trace on a stone, I think it’s my moon, and chant)

  Another ruin and I’ll snuff my memories while standing

  at the station. I don’t love this grass now, this

  forgotten aridity, frivolous and desolate

  it writes the biography of forgetting in this mercurial place.

  And I don’t love chrysanthemum over the tombs of prophets.

  And I don’t love rescuing myself through metaphor, even if

  the violin wants me as an echo of myself. I only love return

  to my life, for my end to become my beginning’s narrative.

  (Like the clang of bells, time broke here)

  I stood in the sixtieth year of my wound. I stood

  at the station, not to await the train or the holler

  of those who return from the south to the grain

  but to memorise the olive and lemon coast

  in my map’s history ... is all

  this absence or what remains of its crumbs mine?

  Did a ghost pass me by, wave from afar and disappear?

  Did I ask him: Will we slaughter a gazelle

  for the stranger whenever a stranger

  smiles to us and casts us a greeting?

  (Like a pinecone echo fell from me)

  Only my intuition guides me to myself.

  Two fugitive doves lay exile’s eggs on my shoulder

  then soar to a pale height. A tourist woman passes by

  and asks me: Can I take your picture to respect the truth?

  I said: What do you mean?

  She said: Can I take your picture

  as an extension of nature? I said: You can ... everything

  is possible, and have a great evening and leave me alone

  with dying ... and with my self

  (Here truth has one single lonely face and that’s why I’ll sing)

  You are you, even if you lose. In the past

  you and I are two, and in tomorrow, one. The train passed

  but we weren’t alert, so rise up complete and optimistic,

  and wait for no one here, beside yourself. Here the train fell

  off the map in the middle of the coastal path. And the fires

  flamed in the heart of the map, then winter

  extinguished the fires, though winter was late.

  We have aged, O how we’ve aged before we could return

  to our first names:

  (I say to whoever sees me through the binoculars on the watchtower I don’t see you ... I don’t see you)

  I see all of my place around me. I see me in the place with all

  my limbs and organs. I see palm trees edit my classical

  Arabic from error. I see almond blossoms,

  their habits in training my song for a sudden

  joy. I see my trace and follow it. I see my shadow

  and lift it from the wadi with a bereaved Canaanite

  woman’s comb. I see what cannot be seen of attractive

  flow and whole beauty in the eternity

  of the hills, and don’t see my snipers.

  (I become my self ’s guest)

  There are dead who light fires around their graves.

  There are living who prepare dinner for their guests.

  There are enough words for metaphor to rise

  above incident. Whenever the place dims a copper moon

  illuminates and expands it. I am my self ’s guest.

  A hospitality that will embarrass and delight me, until I choke

  on words and words choke on obstinate tears ... and the dead,

  along with the living, drink immortality’s mint, without

  talking much about Resurrection Day

  (There’s no train there, and no one will wait for the train)

  Our country is the map’s heart. Its punctured heart

  like a coin in the metal market. The last passenger from somewhere

  between Syria and Egypt didn’t return to pay the fare

  for some extra work the sniper did ... as the strangers expected.

  The last passenger didn’t return and didn’t carry his
death

  and life certificates along for the sages of Judgment Day to discern

  his place in Paradise. O we were angels and fools

  when we believed the banners and the horses

  and that a falcon’s wing will raise us up high

  (My sky is an idea, and the earth is my favourite exile)

  All there is to it is that I only believe my intuition.

  Evidence conducts the dialogue of the impossible. The story

  of creation belongs to the philosopher’s long-winded interpretation.

  My idea about the world has a malfunction

  departure has caused. My eternal wound stands trial

  without an impartial judge. And the judges, exhausted

  by truth, tell me: All there is to it is that

  traffic accidents are common: the train fell off the map

  and you burned with the ember of the past: this

  wasn’t an invasion ...

  but I say: All there is to it is that

  I only believe my intuition

  (I’m still alive)

  Both translated by Sinan Antoon

  On This Earth

  On this earth what makes life worth living:

  the hesitance of April

  the scent of bread at dawn

  an amulet made by a woman for men

  Aeschylus’s works

  the beginnings of love

  moss on a stone

  the mothers standing on the thinness of a flute

  and the fear of invaders of memories.

  On this earth what makes life worth living:

  September’s end

  a lady moving beyond her fortieth year without losing any of her grace

  a sun clock in a prison

  clouds imitating a flock of creatures

  chants of a crowd for those meeting their end smiling

  and the fear of tyrants of the songs.

  On this earth what makes life worth living:

  on this earth stands the mistress of the earth

  mother of beginnings

  mother of endings

  it used to be known as Palestine

  it became known as Palestine

  my lady:

  I deserve, because you’re my lady

  I deserve life.

  Translated by Karim Abuawad

  I Am from There

  I am from there and I have memories. Like any other

  Man I was born. I have a mother,

  A house with several windows, friends and brothers.

  I have a prison cell’s cold window, a wave

  Snatched by seagulls, my own view, an extra blade

  Of grass, a moon at word’s end, a life-supply

  Of birds, and an olive tree that cannot die.

  I walked and crossed the land before the crossing

  Of swords made a banquet-table of a body.

  I come from there, and I return the sky

  To its mother when it cries for her, and cry

  For a cloud on its return

  To recognise me. I have learned

  All words befitting of blood’s court to break

  The rule; I have learned all the words to take

  The lexicon apart for one noun’s sake,

  The compound I must make:

  Homeland.

  Translated by A.Z. Foreman

  Standing Before the Ruins of Al-Birweh

  Darwish was born in the village of Al-Birweh on 13 March 1941. In 1948, it was occupied and depopulated by Israeli forces. Its inhabitants became refugees, some in Lebanon, others internally displaced and designated present-absentees. In 1949, a Kibbutz was established; a year later, a settlement was built.

  Like birds, I tread lightly on the earth’s skin

  so as not to wake the dead

  I shut the door to my emotions to become my other

  I don’t feel that I am a stone sighing

  as it longs for a cloud

  Thus I tread as if I am a tourist

  and a correspondent for a foreign newspaper

  Of this place I choose the wind

  I choose absence to describe it

  Absence sat, neutral, around me

  The crow saw it

  Halt, my two companions!

  Let us experience this place our own way:

  Here, a sky fell on a stone and bled it

  so that anemones would bloom in the spring

  (Where is my song now?)

  Here, the gazelle broke the glass of my window

  so that I would follow it

  (So where is my song now?)

  Here, the magical morning butterflies carried the path to my school

  (So where is my song now?)

  Here I saddled a horse to fly to my stars

  (So where is my song now?)

  I say to my two companions:

  Stop so that I may weigh the place

  and its emptiness with Jahili odes

  full of horses and departure

  For every rhyme we will pitch a tent

  For every home to be stormed by the wind,

  there is a rhyme

  But I am the son of my first tale

  My milk is warm in my mother’s breast

  The bed is swung by two tiny birds

  My father is building my tomorrow with his two hands

  I didn’t grow up and so did not go to exile

  The tourist says: Wait for the dove to finish its cooing!

  I say: It knows me and I know it, but the letter has not arrived

  The journalist interrupts my secret song:

  Do you see that dairy factory behind that strong pine tree?

  I say: No, I only see the gazelle at the window

  He says: What about the modern roads on the rubble of houses?

  I say: No, I don’t see them

  I only see the garden under them

  and I see the cobweb

  He says: Dry your two tears with a handful of fresh grass

  I say: That is my other crying over my past

  The tourist says: The visit is over

  I haven’t found anything to photograph except a ghost

  I say: I see absence with all its instruments

  I touch it and hear it. It lifts me high

  I see the ends of the distant skies

  Whenever I die I notice

  I am born again and I return

  from absence to absence.

  Translated by Sinan Antoon

  SAMIH AL-QASSIM

  So What If

  O my country, an earring left to swing

  From the ear of the earth with no rest;

  My country ... a woman whose thighs are spread

  Wide by a wind from the West,

  My country the raft’s one oar,

  My country the missing son!

  Will you one day rise up in my breast?

  Will you become a country ... like the rest?

  The End of a Discussion with a Prison Guard

  Through the eyehole of this little cell of mine

  I can see the trees all smiling at me,

  The rooftops crowded with my family,

  The windows breaking into tears for me

  And prayers for me.

  Through the eyehole of this little cell of mine

  I see your bigger cell just fine.

  Kafr Qassim

  On 29 October 1956, the Israeli authorities declared a 5pm curfew in Palestinian villages, bolstered with a shoot-to-kill order. Villagers working in the fields failed to receive word of this. Forty-eight Palestinians were killed when they tried to return.

  No monument raised, no memorial, and no rose.

  Not one line of verse to ease the slain

  Not one curtain, not one blood-stained

  Shred of our blameless brothers’ clothes.

  Not one stone to engrave their names.

  Not one thing. Only the shame.

  Their circling ghosts have still
not ceased

  Digging up graves in Kafr Qasim’s debris.

  Travel Tickets

  The day I’m killed,

  my killer, rifling through my pockets,

  will find travel tickets:

  One to peace,

  one to the fields and the rain,

  and one

  to the conscience of humankind.

  Dear killer of mine, I beg you:

  Do not stay and waste them.

  Take them, use them.

  I beg you to travel.

  All translated by A.Z. Foreman

  Persona Non Grata

  Here is the beginning of carnage.

  Its finale: my lunar scream.

  I understand my glass can be fragmented by a bullet. Aim well and try to assassinate me. My little ones are too young for death, crude fruit unbecoming for your masters. Aim well: my wife is safe now in her kitchen. Aim well, here I am alone reading Le Fou d’Elsa. If your sniper bends two inches he can see me: a quiet figure beside the study window.

  Do come.

  Do come with all the dreadful fires of your malice.

  Do come! Here I have a spiral ladder linking heaven to earth, a fan failing in the heat, a tank strolling on a pregnant belly, and here I have barren nations.

  Skulls mounted with medals in the stock exchange of death, shoes inhabited by scorpions. Oh, for a glass of sour bitter water in exchange for my blood and tears. I have been wounded: my wound is vivid, my voice is vivid, my silence is vivid. I bow my heart in respect. Do come.

  My affliction: dazzlement.

  My wrath: supplication.

  Do come.

  Do come.

  My stay is flight.

  My death is combat.

  I swear by fig and oil, by silence and clamour, by fertility and sterility, by honey and hemlock, by bud and blood, by ignorance and knowledge, yesterday and today, I swear to fight.

  I will continue to fight!

  I will continue!

  Until truth is born and falsehood is vanished

  I will and will, rise and sink, round and surround, release and refrain, hover and halt.

  What? How?

  Thus it is:

  a fall on to the peak of death,

  stallions trotting behind in the tracks of tragicomedy.

  Thus it is:

  resting into a siesta on a bus seat – an enclosed prison cell.

  Menstruation with sterility, sterility with menstruation, sorrow and protest, love and hate: a wasteland resort.

  I will walk out of my body … I cannot bear it!

  I will search for a friend.