On Mahmoud Darwish Day, 13 Poems

1) “The Moon Did Not Fall Into the Well,” from  Journal of an Ordinary Grief, tr. Ibrahim Muhawi

Muhawi’s translations have a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the original, and this particular text is narrative, open-hearted, and with deeply etched characters. It opens:

—What are you doing, father?

—I’m searching for my heart, which fell away that night.

—Do you think you’ll find it here?

—Where else am I going to nd it? I bend to the ground and pick it up piece by piece just as the women of the fellahin pick up olives in October, one olive at a time.

—But you’re picking up pebbles!

—Doing that is a good exercise for memory and perception. Who knows? Maybe these pebbles are petrified pieces of my heart.

2) “Love, like meaning,” from  In the Presence of Absence, tr. Sinan Antoon.

Perhaps the greatest of Darwish’s works, this version brought Antoon the 2012 National Translation Award:

Love, like meaning, is out on the open road, but like poetry, it is difficult. It requires talent, endurance, and skillful formulation, because of its many stations. It is not enough to love, for that is one of nature’s magical acts, like rainfall and thunder. It takes you out of yourself into the other’s orbit and then you have to fend for yourself. It is not enough to love, you have to know how to love. Do you know how?

3) “The Dice Player,” from If I Were Another: Poems, tr. Fady Joudah

The charming “The Dice Player” with a visual adaptation:

4) “The Horse Fell off the Poem,” from The Butterfly’s Burden, tr. Fady Joudah

5) “The Second Olive Tree,” tr. Marilyn Hacker

And with horses, olive trees:

The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive tree
Is the hillside’s modest lady. Shadow
Covers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.
Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.

6) “Nothing But Iraq,” tr. Shareah Taleghani

A cry to Badr Shakir al-Sayyab:

I remember as-Sayyab screaming into the Gulf in vain:
Iraq, Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.
And nothing but an echo replies
I remember as-Sayyab, in that Sumerian space
A woman triumphed over the sterility of mist
She bequeathed to us earth and exile . . .
For poetry is born in Iraq,
So be Iraqi to become a poet, my friend.

6) A second translation, titled “I Remember al-Sayyab,” by Taline Voskeritchian and Christopher Millis

I remember al-Sayyab, his futile cries across the Gulf:

‘Iraq, Iraq, nothing but Iraq,’

And nothing answers but an echo.

I remember al-Sayyab under these same Sumerian skies

Where a woman surmounted the void

To make us heirs to earth and exile.

7) “And where is my will?” from Memory for Forgetfulness, tr. Ibrahim Muhawi

And where is my will?

It stopped over there, on the other side of the collective voice. But now, I want nothing more than the aroma of coffee. Now I feel shame. I feel shamed by my fear, and by those defending the scent of the distant homeland–that fragrance they’ve never smelled because they weren’t born on her soil. She bore them, but they were born away from her. Yet they studied her constantly, without fatigue or boredom; and from overpowering memory and constant pursuit, they learned what it means to belong to her.

“You’re aliens here,” they say to them there.

“You’re aliens here,” they say to them here.

8) “Standing Before the Ruins of Al-Birweh,” tr. Sinan Antoon, from I Don’t Want This Poem to End

9) “The Tragedy of Narcissus,” from If I Were Another, tr. Fady Joudah:

10) “A Noun Sentence,” tr. Fady Joudah

A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love … a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.

11) “If I Were a Hunter,” tr. Shakir Mustafa

If a hunter I were
I’d give the gazelle
a chance, and another,
and a third, and a tenth,
to doze a little. My share
of the booty would be
peace of mind under
her dozing head.

12) “Diary,” tr. Tania Tamari Nasir and John Berger.

If you were told: you’re going to die here this evening What would you do in the remaining time? Look at my watch Drink a glass of juice Munch an apple Watch an ant who has found what to eat Then look at my watch There’s still time to shave have a bath I say to myself: One needs one’s finery when about to write So I’ll wear the blue shirt I sit til noon alive at my desk I do not see the effect of color on words Whiteness whiteness whiteness I prepare my last lunch I pour out wine into two glasses For me and for the one who will come Unannounced Then I take a siesta in between two dreams

13) “ID Card,” tr. Salman Masalha and Vivian Eden

This would not likely be a poem Darwish would choose among only 13 of his works. But it is one that, although written in his early days, in 1964, continues to have great political resonance:

Write it down! I’m an Arab
My card number is 50000
My children number eight
And after this summer, a ninth on his way.
Does this make you rage?
I am an Arab.