Palestinian Poetry Blogging

Athens Airport

Athens airport disperses us to other airports. Where can I fight? asked the fighter.
Where can I deliver your child? a pregnant women shouts back.
Where can I invest my money? asks the officer.
This is none of my business, the intellectual says
Where did you come from? asks the customs' official.
And we answer: From the sea!
Where are you going?
To the sea, we answer
What is your address?
A woman of our group says: My village is the bundle on my back.
We have waited in the Athens airport for years.
A young man marries a girl but they have no place for their wedding night.
He asks: Where can I make love to her?
We laugh and say: This is not the right time for that question.
The analyst says: In order to live, they die by mistake.
The literary man says: Our camp will certainly fall.
What do they want with us?
Athens airport welcomes it visitors without end.
Yet, like benches in the terminal, we remain, impatiently waiting for
the sea.
How many more years longer, O Athens's airport?

From Fewer Roses (1986) by Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché