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POEMS FROM PALESTINE BOULLATA to sing with a fighter. Don’t tell me: I wish I were a shepherd in Yemen To sing for resurrection. Don’t tell me: I wish I were a waiter in Havana To sing the victories of the op- pressed. Don’t tell me: I wish I were a young porter in Aswan To sing for the rocks. My friend: The Nile will never flow into the Volga, Nor will the Congo or the Jordan flow into the Euphrates. Each river has its own springs, Its own course, and its own life. Our land, my friend, is no barren land. Each land gives birth in due time, And each fighter will see the dawn. Mahmud Darweesh ____________________________ The text in the image reads: --- For further research in English on Palestinian Arab poetry, see: 1. A. L. Tibawi, “Visions of the Re- turn: the Palestine Refugees in Arab Poetry and Art,” The Middle East Journal (Washington, D.C., Fall, 1963) XVII, pp. 507-526. 2. Emile A. Nakhleh, “Wells of Bitter- ness: A Survey of Israeli-Arab Po- litical Poetry,” The Palestinian Re- sistance to Israeli Occupation, ed. by Nasseer Aruri (Wilmette, Illi- nois: the Medina University Press International, 1970), pp. 107-124. 3. Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine. Trans. by Sulafa Hijjawi, int. by Ghassan Karafani (Bagh- dad: Ministry of Culture and Guid- ance, 1968). 4. Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Pales- tinian Resistance, ed. & trans. by Nasseer Aruri & Edmund Ghareeb (Washington, D.C.: Drum and Spear Press, 1970). 5. A Lover from Palestine and Other Poems, ed. by Abdul Wahab Al Messiri (Washington, D.C.: Free Palestine Press, 1970). 47
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 09:21:54