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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Passport, by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestenian poet


(this poem was originally written in arabic, however has been translated into english)


They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah . . . Don’t leave 
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don’t leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm
To the door of the distant airport
All the wheatfields
All the prisons

All the white tombstones
All the barbed Boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport
Stripped of my name and identity
On soil I nourished with my own hands
Today Job cried out
Filling the sky:
Don’t make an example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don’t ask the trees for their names
Don’t ask the valleys who their mother is
From my forehead bursts the sward of light
And from my hand springs the water of the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!