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FREEDOMWAYS FIRST QUARTER 1973

And your handkerchiefs, my beloved,
Were all white.
What smeared them that night?
It passes my understanding.

Quietly, they stopped the labourer’s
truck
at the curve of the road;
Quietly, they turned us to the East.

For you, everything I have;
Both the shadow and the light,
The wedding ring and whatever you
want,
An orchard of olive and fig trees.

Every night I will come as I used to,
And in your dreams, I will pass through
a window
to give you Jasmine.
If I am late
The blame shall not be mine.
The forest of the olive trees was always green;
It once was, my beloved.
At sunset
The blood of fifty victims turned it
into
A pond . . . fifty victims, my beloved.
And as you sit and wait,
Please do not blame my broken word,
For I was murdered, too.

Mahmud Darweesh

THE QUIET ONE

You were a quiet, lovely child in
Haifa.
You did not cry
When Amin died in the street holding
The small red rose you’d picked for
him
But half an hour before
You did not cry.

You were a quiet, friendly child at
Sur.*

______
*At Sur in Lebanon there is a Palestinian refugee camp to which the poet must be referring.

You did not change.
Often I saw you go and stand where
you could
See a garden, quite alone perhaps
With thoughts of Haifa . . . of your
Father's face
You did not change.

And you are quiet still. Leaning by
the door
You did not speak.
Your body hung with weapons, glittering with hope,
You hand to me the purpled petal of
a long dead rose.
You do not speak.

We part with screams of love and loss—
Amin! Amin!
. . . Silently.

Jumana

LETTER FROM PRISON

Mother,
It grieves me, mother,
To know
When my friends knock at the door
Asking you about me
You burst into tears.

For I, mother, believe:
In this my prison
The spilling splendour of Life
is born
And I do also believe:
My final visitor here will not
be an eyeless bat.

It shall be the day
It shall be the day.

Samih Al Kasim

Passages from
LETTER TO THE BELOVED

Beloved,
Night in my cell
Is life still in bud:
You are like the firing of light
Like truth

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 09:18:51 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 15:49:26 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 17:16:12