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POEMS FROM PALESTINE          BOULLATA

And the second a rent in the ceiling, leading
To the skies,
Revealing the stars
Like refugees scattered,
And like them naked.

Also the moon is trudging there 
Downcast and weary as the U.N.R.W.A.* 
Yellow as though it were the U.N.R.W.A.
Under a load of yellow cheese for the refugees.
Tent #50, on the left, that is my present,
But it is too cramped to contain a future!,
And—"Forget!" they say, but how can I?
Teach the night to forget to bring
Dreams showing me my village
And teach the wind to forget to carry
To me
The aroma of apricots in my fields!
And teach the sky, too, to forget to
rain.
Only then, I may forget my country.

Rashed Hussein

A REFUGEE
The sun could seep through barbed
borders and soldiers
Cannot fire in its face.

As evening comes
It sups, then sleeps
With birds at the Kibbutzim.

A lost donkey
Strolling in peace
Across the barbed borders
And soldiers

Cannot fire in its face;
But, as for me, your ousted son
Motherland,
Between horizons of your skies
And these my eyes
Walls of the borders stand.

Salem Jubran

*Since the establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948, the Palestinian refugees have been largely depending for the necessities of life on international charity administered by U.N.R.W.A. (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 for this purpose.


AN ADDRESS
Hairs as short as my life is
And a mouth as sensuous as my dreams
And fire is her voice
And so is the music
Yet she wants me to rest
On an easy chair
And keep my thoughts clean.

Oh my dear hunter!
What you ask is much more
Than all that I can give...
For the angels are dead,
And I am not with them.

A wine was her perfume
Generous was her bed
But her hopes were stronger,
And the strongest of all:
She asked: "Where lives 'the Prince'?"
Then, I stood silenced
For I had no address.
I am a man in transit
A man who was even deprived
The right of having an address.

Rashed Hussein

Passages from
ANTI-AIRCRAFT AMULETS

I was a child of nine; then
I sucked the milk of tragedy
I was a child with dreamy eyes,
Thousands of nets surrounded me
On that day I remember
Mother's troubled voice:
"Tonight when you go to bed,
Sleep in your clothes
And don't take off your shoes!"
I did not understand what she meant
then,
Yet—I cried.

It is nightfall
The semi circle of the murdered moon,

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