To be human is to love, to create, and to resist.
-Mahmoud Darwish
1. Sonnet V I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place
patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle
and, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches
so I carry faraway’s land and it carries me on travel’s road
On a mare made of your virtues, my soul weaves
a natural sky made of your shadows, one chrysalis at a time.
I am the son of what you do in the earth, son of my wounds
that have lit up the pomegranate blossoms in your closed-up gardens
Out of jasmine the night’s blood streams white. Your perfume,
my weakness and your secret, follows me like a snakebite. And your hair
is a tent of wind autumn in color. I walk along with speech
to the last of the words a bedouin told a pair of doves
I palpate you as a violin palpates the silk of the faraway time
and around me and you sprouts the grass of an ancient place—anew
From The Butterfly’s Burden (2007) by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah, published by Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2007 by Mahmoud Darwish. Translation and preface copyright © 2007 by Fady Joudah.
2. To a Young Poet
Don’t believe our outlines, forget them
and begin from your own words.
As if you are the first to write poetry
or the last poet.
If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,
but to correct our errs
in the book of agony.
Don’t ask anyone: Who am I?
You know who your mother is.
As for your father, be your own.
Truth is white, write over it
with a crow’s ink.
Truth is black, write over it
with a mirage’s light.
If you want to duel with a falcon
soar with the falcon.
If you fall in love with a woman,
be the one, not she,
who desires his end.
Life is less alive than we think but we don’t think
of the matter too much lest we hurt emotions’ health.
If you ponder a rose for too long
you won’t budge in a storm.
You are like me, but my abyss is clear.
And you have roads whose secrets never end.
They descend and ascend, descend and ascend.
You might call the end of youth
the maturity of talent
or wisdom. No doubt, it is wisdom,
the wisdom of a cool non-lyric.
One thousand birds in the hand
don’t equal one bird that wears a tree.
A poem in a difficult time
is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.
Example is not easy to attain
so be yourself and other than yourself
behind the borders of echo.
Ardor has an expiration date with extended range.
So fill up with fervor for your heart’s sake,
follow it before you reach your path.
Don’t tell the beloved, you are I
and I am you, say
the opposite of that: we are two guests
of an excess, fugitive cloud.
Deviate, with all your might, deviate from the rule.
Don’t place two stars in one utterance
and place the marginal next to the essential
to complete the rising rapture.
Don’t believe the accuracy of our instructions.
Believe only the caravan’s trace.
A moral is as a bullet in its poet’s heart
a deadly wisdom.
Be strong as a bull when you’re angry
weak as an almond blossom
when you love, and nothing, nothing
when you serenade yourself in a closed room.
The road is long like an ancient poet’s night:
plains and hills, rivers and valleys.
Walk according to your dream’s measure: either a lily
follows you or the gallows.
Your tasks are not what worry me about you.
I worry about you from those who dance
over their children’s graves,
and from the hidden cameras
in the singers’ navels.
You won’t disappoint me,
if you distance yourself from others, and from me.
What doesn’t resemble me is more beautiful.
From now on, your only guardian is a neglected future.
Don’t think, when you melt in sorrow
like candle tears, of who will see you
or follow your intuition’s light.
Think of yourself: is this all of myself?
The poem is always incomplete, the butterflies make it whole.
No advice in love. It’s experience.
No advice in poetry. It’s talent.
And last but not least, Salaam.
3. The Death of the Phoenix
In the songs we sing there is a flute.
In the flute that dwells within us there is a fire.
In the fire that we kindle there is a green phoenix.
And in the elegy of the phoenix I can't tell my ashes
apart from your dust.
A lilac cloud is enough to hide the hunter's tent from us.
So walk on the water like the Lord, she said:
No desert is reflected in what I remember of you,
henceforth the roses that blossom from your ruined house
will have no enemies!
The water was a ring around the high mountain.
And Tiberias, the backyard for the first paradise.
I said: The image of the world has been perfected
in your two green eyes.
She said: My prince and my prisoner,
put my wines into your jars!
The two strangers who burned within us are those
who wanted to murder us only moments ago, who will come back to their swords after a while,
who will ask: Who are you?
-We are two shadows of our past lives here,
and two names for the wheat that sprouts
from the bread of battles.
I don't want to return home now,
the way the Crusaders returned.
I am all this silence between two fronts:
gods on one side, those who invent their names on the other.
I am the shadow who walks on water.
I am the witness and the thing witnessed,
the worshipper and the temple
in the land of both your siege and mine.
Be my lover between two wars waged in the mirror, she said.
I don't want to return now to the fortress of my father's house.
Take me to your vineyard.
Let me meet your mother.
Perfume me with basil water.
Arrange me on silver dishes, comb me,
imprison me in your name,
let love kill me. Wed me, marry me to the agrarian life,
teach me the flute, burn within me to be born
like the phoenix from both my fire and yours!
Something resembling a phoenix wept and bled
before falling into the water close to the hunter's tent.
What's the use of your waiting, or mine?
4. I See My Ghost Coming from Afar
Like a balcony, I gaze upon whatever I desire.
I see my friends bearing the evening mail-wine, bread,
a few novels and records.
I gaze upon a seagull and troop trucks arriving
to change the trees of this place.
I gaze upon the dog of the neighbor who left
Canada a year and a half ago.
I gaze upon the name of AI-Mutanabbi
journeying from Tiberias to Egypt
on a horse of song.
I gaze upon the Persian flower
leaping the iron fence.
Like a balcony, I gaze upon whatever I desire.
I gaze upon trees guarding the night from the night
and the sleep of those who would wish me death.
I gaze upon the wind chasing the wind
so that it might find a home in the wind.
I gaze upon a woman basking in herself.
I gaze upon the procession of ancient prophets
climbing barefoot to Jerusalem
and I ask: will there be a new prophet for this new time?
Like a balcony, I gaze upon whatever I desire.
I gaze upon my image hurrying away from itself,
ascending the stone stairs, my mother's scarf in her hand
flapping in the wind: what might happen if I were a child again?
And if you came back to me, and I came back to you?
I gaze upon the trunk of the olive tree that hid Zechariah.
I gaze upon the extinct words in the Arabic dictionary.
I gaze upon the Persians, the Romans, the Sumerians,
and the new refugees ...
I gaze upon the necklace of one of Tagore's women fakirs
as it is crushed by the carriage of a handsome emir.
I gaze upon a hoopoe tired of his king's blame.
I gaze upon the unseen:
What will come-what will come after the ashes?
I gaze upon my body frightened from afar.
Like a balcony, I gaze upon whatever I desire.
I gaze upon my language.
A little absence is enough for Aeschylus to open the door to peace,
for Antonio to make a brief speech at the outbreak of war,
for me to hold a woman's hand in my hand,
to embrace my freedom,
and for my body to begin its ebb and tide anew.
Like a balcony, I gaze upon whatever I desire.
I gaze upon my ghost approaching from afar.
From Why DId You Leave the Horse Alone? (1995) by Mahmoud Darwish. Copyright © 1995 by Mahmoud Darwish.
5. A Noun Sentence
A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love ... a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.
My flower green like the phoenix. My heart exceeding
my need, hesitant between two doors:
entry a joke, and exit
a labyrinth. Where is my shadow—my guide amid
the crowdedness on the road to judgment day? And I
as an ancient stone of two dark colors in the city wall,
chestnut and black, a protruding insensitivity
toward my visitors and the interpretation of shadows. Wishing
for the present tense a foothold for walking behind me
or ahead of me, barefoot. Where
is my second road to the staircase of expanse? Where
is futility? Where is the road to the road?
And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present
tense, where are we? Our talk a predicate
and a subject before the sea, and the elusive foam
of speech the dots on the letters,
wishing for the present tense a foothold
on the pavement ...
From The Butterfly’s Burden (2007) by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah, published by Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2007 by Mahmoud Darwish. Translation and preface copyright © 2007 by Fady Joudah.
Recommended Reading: Essential Books by Mahmoud Darwish
Description
"Mahmoud Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the world's whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around the world--his in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered."
-Naomi Shihab Nye
"Mahmoud Darwish is the leading poet in the Arab world, an artist and activist who attracts thousands to his public readings.
The Butterfly's Burden combines the complete text of Darwish's two most recent full-length volumes, linked by the stunning memoir-witness poem "A State of Siege." Love poems, sonnets, journal-like distillations, and interlaced lyrics balance old literary traditions with new forms, highlighting loving reflections alongside bitter longing.
From Sonnet [V]
I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place.
Patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle.
And, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches
so I carry faraway's land and it carries me on the road.
Mahmoud Darwish is the author of 30 books of poetry and prose, as well as the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. He has worked as a journalist, was director of the Palestinian Research Center, and lived in exile until his return to Palestine in 1996. He has received many international awards for his poetry.
Translator Fady Joudah is a physician based in Houston, Texas. His first book of poems received the Yale Younger Poets prize."
Description
"Tilda Swinton's Top Ten Favorite Books for T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Mahmoud Darwish is a literary rarity: at once critically acclaimed as one of the most important poets in the Arabic language, and beloved as the voice of his people. A legend in Palestine, his lyrics are sung by fieldworkers and schoolchildren. He has assimilated some of the world's oldest literary traditions while simultaneously struggling to open new possibilities for poetry. This collection spans Darwish's entire career, nearly four decades, revealing an impressive range of expression and form. A splendid team of translators has collaborated with the poet on these new translations, which capture Darwish's distinctive voice and spirit. Fady Joudah's foreword, new to this edition, addresses Darwish's enduring legacy following his death in 2008."
Description
"The first English translation of recent poetry by the late Mahmoud Darwish, the most important Palestinian contemporary poet. Almond Blossoms and Beyond is one of the last collections of poetry that Mahmoud Darwish left to the world. Composed of brief lyric poems and the magnificent sustained Exile cycle, Almond Blossoms holds an important place in Darwish's unparalleled oeuvre. It distills his late style, in which, though the specter of death looms and weddings turn to funerals, he threads the pulses and fragilities and beauties of life into the lines of his poems. Their liveliness is his own response to the collection's final call to bid "Farewell / Farewell, to the poetry of pain.""
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