Palestinian Poetry Blogging

Yes I am back, finally got my internet connection sorted out!

so here is some more Mahmoud Darwish

I Belong Here

I Belong Here. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.
I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends and a prision cell
with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.
I have a saturated medow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon, a birds sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.
I have lived on the land long before swords turned me into prey.
I belong here. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to her mother.
And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.
To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.
I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a
single word: Home

from Fewer Roses (1986) by Mahamoud Darwish

Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché