Mahmoud Darwish’s “Identity Card” on the Anniversary of his Death

I am an Arab

Lower not myself at your doorstep.
What’s there to be angry about?

I am an Arab.

My roots
Took hold before the birth of time
Before the burgeoning of the ages,
Before cypress and olive trees,
Before the proliferation of weeds.

Not from highborn nobles.

Without line or genealogy.

Made of sticks and reeds.

I am a name without a surname.

I am an Arab.

On my head the ‘iqal cords over a keffiyeh
Scratching him who touches it.

I’m from a village, remote, forgotten,
Its streets without name
And all its men in the fields and quarry.

What’s there to be angry about?

I am an Arab.

And land I used to till,
I and all my children,
And you left us and all my grandchildren
Nothing but these rocks.
Will your government be taking them too
As is being said?

Put it on record at the top of page one:
I don’t hate people,
I trespass on no one’s property.

I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
Beware, beware of my hunger
And of my anger!