Friday, December 09, 2005

From Al-Jidariyyah by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
"And I said: Be who you are. But I left.
And that who you see now, is not me.
I am my ghost....
Here? Am I free or imprisoned
without knowing. And this sea
behind the fence is my sea?
He said: You are the prisoner,
imprisoned by yourself and nostalgia.
And that who you see now, is not me.
I am my ghost.
I said talking to myself: I am alive.
And I said: if two ghosts meet
in the desert, do they share the sand,
or do they compete to monopolize the night?/"