Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 02:41:25 -0800
From: saeed urrehman <think-AT-riseup.net>
Subject: Re: the famous poem of mahmoud darwish


here is some more information on mahmoud darwish collected from different 
internet sites.

saeed
_____
Mahmoud Darwish was born in Al-Birwah near Akka in 1941. In 1948, the village 
was attacked by the Zionists and its people left to other places. Darwish ran 
away at the age of seven to find himself in Lebanon knowing nothing about his 
family. A year later, he went back to Palestine to find his village totally 
ruined and an Israeli settlement is in its place. 
Darwish wrote his first poems when he was in the elementary school in the 
village of Der Al-Asad. He was detained by the Israelis and was put under house 
arrest several times. He was denied having a higher education. However he 
managed to go to Moscow in 1970 from where he went to Cairo in 1971. He was the 
head of The Palestinian Center for Research, editor of Shu'oon Falasteeniyyah 
(Palestinian Affairs Magazine), head of The General Association of Palestinian 
Writers and Journalists, editor of Al-Karmil Magazine of the GAPWJ, and lately 
member of The Executive Committee of the PLO. He resigned from this position in 
1993.


here are some other poems.
____________________________________________________________
PASSPORT

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 . . . Dont't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
All the songs of the rain recognize me
Dont' 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 a 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 sword 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! 
-----------------------------------------------------
IDENTITY CARD

Write down!
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!

----------------------------------------------------
MY MOTHER

I long for my mother's bread
My mother's coffee
Her touch
Childhood memories grow up in me
Day after day
I must be worth my life
At the hour of my death
Worth the tears of my mother

And if I come back one day
Take me as a veil to your eyelashes
Cover my bones with the grass
Blessed by your footsteps
Bind us together
with a lock of your hair
With a thread that trails from the back of your dress
I might become immortal
Become a god
If I touch the depths of your heart

If I come back
Use me as wood to feed your fire
As the clothesline on the roof of your house
Without your blessing
I am too weak to stand

I am old
Give me back the star maps of childhood
So that I
Along eith the swallows
Can chart the path
Back to your waiting nest

-----------------------------------------------
RITA AND THE RIFLE

Between Rita and my eyes
There is a rifle
And whoever knows Rita
kneels and prays
for the divinity in those honey-colored eyes

And I kissed Rita 
When she was young
And I remember Rita how she approached
And how my arms covered the lovliest of braids
And I remember Rita
The way a sparrow remembers its stream
Ah, Rita
Between us there are a million sparrows and images
And many a rendezvous
Fired at by a rifle

Rita's name was a feast in my mouth
Rita's body was a wedding in my blood
And i was lost in Rita for two years
And for two years she slept on my arm
And we made promises
Over the most beautiful of cups
And we burned in the wine of our lips
And we were born again

Ah, Rita!
What before this rifle could have turned my eyes 
from yours
Except a nap or two 
or honey-colored clouds ? 
Once upon atime
Oh, the silence of the dusk
In the morning my moon migrated to a far place
Towards those honey-colored eyes
And the city swept away all the singers
And Rita

Between Rita and my eyes ...
There is a rifle ...


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