Palestinian Poetry Blogging

We Travel Like People

We travel like everyone else, but we return to nothing. As if travel were
a path of clouds. We buried our loved ones in the shades of clouds and
between roots of trees.
We said to our wives: Give birth for hundreds of years, so that we may end this journey
within an hour of a country, within a meter of the impossible!
We travel in the chariots of the Psalms, sleep in the tents of the prophets,
and are born again in the language of Gypsies.
We measure space with a hoopoe's beak, and sing so that distance may forget us.
We cleanse the moonlight. Your road is long, so dream of seven women to bear
this long journey on your shoulders. Shake the trunks of palm trees for them.
You know the names, and which one will give birth to the Son of Galilee.
Ours is a country of words: Talk, Talk. Let me rest my road against a stone
Ours is a country of words: Talk, Talk. Let me see an end to this journey.

From Fewer Roses (1986) by Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché