Sunday, December 11, 2005

Complete Murder by Syrian poet Muhammad Al-Maghut (my translation):
"I gave it freedom
It gave me prisons.
I gave it palaces and fortresses...
It gave me huts.
I gave it the sun...
It gave me darkness.
I gave it eloquence, rhetoric, and elucidation
before kings and clerics,
and it gave me stumbleness stutter
before servants, concubines, and eunuchs.
I gave it the road, bridges, and
traffic lights,
and it gave me potholes and swamps.
I gave it the horizon,
and it gave me barbed wires and
the Road Map.
I gave it Fayruz, Asmahan, `Abdul-Wahab, Fayzah Ahmad, Wardah, `Abdul-Halim, and the sweetest nightingales and goldfinches of the homeland,
and it gave me sirens of police cars and ambulances.
I gave it `Uqbah, Tariq, `Antarah, Al-Ghafiqi, and Al-Qa`qa`,
And it gave me the defeat of June.
I gave it truffle, blueberries, and the
savings of children,
and it gave me explosions and bombs.
I gave it banks, mines, and the goods
of earth and skies,
and it gave me knocks on the door.
I gave it my core of the liver and
blood of the heart, and the soul and heart,
and it gave me the tip of the tongue.
All those I loved, became hungry and displaced,
and they lost their incomes and limbs,
and also their minds and lives for it,
and in loyalty to it,
and it betrayed them all.
It is Palestine...
This is why I am entitled to avenge it,
and wash my honor like any Bedouin
who does not sit on an injustice,
no matter how much I will miss it and long for it."