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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, 41