מָוֶת וְעוֹד מָוֶת, חוֹל וְעוֹד חוֹל עָמַדְנוּ בַּכִּכָּר, רְעֵבִים לִהְיוֹת, וּכְמוֹ צֵל הָרִים כִּסִּינוּ אֶת הָעִיר בִּתְמוּנוֹת הַשֵּׁנָה בְּהָקִיץ. הָיְתָה אוֹ לֹא הָיְתָה? זָר לְגוּפִי, יָכוֹל וְלֹא יָכוֹל, נִסִּיתִי אֶת הָאֲוִיר: כַּמָּה שָׁנִים עוֹד נֵלֵךְ בַּחוֹלוֹת הַמֵּתִים הָאֵלֶּה? הָהָר נִשְׁקָף כְּמוֹ חָזוֹן אוֹ תַּעְתּוּעַ חוֹלוֹת נוֹסְעִים תַּחְתֵּינוּ כְּמוֹ זִכָּרוֹן בְּלִי הַתְחָלָה וְכָל מָקוֹם - הוּא כָּל מָקוֹם. מֵאַיִן בָּאנוּ? הַאִם הַדֶּרֶךְ עוֹלָה אוֹ יוֹרֶדֶת? הַאִם אַתְּ שָׁם, מֵאֲחוֹרֵי מַבָּטִי? הַאִם מַבָּטִי לְפָנַי עוֹד? לְבַד חָצִינוּ אֶת הַבִּצּוֹת הַגְּדוֹלוֹת עַל פְּנֵי הַטְּבוּעִים הַנְּמַסִּים לְאִטָּם. שָׁנִים הָיִינוּ בְּנֵי אַלְמָוֶת. בַּעֲלִיַּת הַגַּג, בְּאַמְסְטֶרְדַם, רָאִינוּ צַעַר נוֹרָא בַּחַלּוֹן. כַּמָּה נֵלֵךְ עוֹד בֵּין מָוֶת לְמָוֶת, חוֹל וְחוֹל? הִיסְטוֹרְיָה חֲדָשָׁה תֵּן לָנוּ, מָוֶת חָדָשׁ תֵּן לָנוּ. אֶת חַיֵּי הַיּוֹם תֵּן לָנוּ הַיּוֹם.
The Orpheus Prayer / תְּפִלַּת אוֹרְפֶאוּס
Death and yet more death, sand and more sand We have stood in the square hungry to be and, like mountain shadows, covered the city with pictures of a waking sleep. Was she there or wasn’t she? A stranger in my body, able and yet unable, I tried the air: “How many more years will we walk these dead sands?” The mountain is glimpsed like a vision or a mirage. Sands move on underfoot like a memory with no beginning, and each place is every place. Does the way go up or down? Are you here, behind my gaze? Is my gaze there, ahead of me? Where have we come from? Alone, the two of us have crossed vast marshes on the slowly melting faces of the drowned. For years we’ve been immortal. In the attic, in Amsterdam, we saw terrible sorrow in the window. How much longer shall we walk between death and death, sand and sand? A new past give us, a new death give us. Give us this day the life of the day. Amir Ori
Translation: Fiona Sampson
If I Were Another
BY MAHMOUD DARWISH TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH
If I were another on the road, I would not have looked back, I would have said what one traveler said to another: Stranger! awaken the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am so much other than myself right here before you! If I were another I would have belonged to the road, neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts the traveler to test gravity. I am only my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm. If I were another on the road, I would have hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem would be of water, diaphanous, white, abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory, and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said: My identity is this expanse! If I were another on the road, I would have said to the guitar: Teach me an extra string! Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier— that’s what my new song would say. Whenever the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two on this road: I ... and another!
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AMIR OR, a leading Israeli poet, was recognized as a major new generation voice in world literature. Born in Tel Aviv, he is descendant of a renowned Rabbis dynasty. Or published 12 poetry books in Hebrew and 23 in translation in Europe, America and Asia. His latest poetry books are Loot – selected poems 1977-2013 (2013) and Wings (2015). He gave readings and lectured in dozens of festivals and conferences worldwide. His poetry, translated into more than 40 languages, won him national and international awards, including the Prime Minister's Prize, the Fulbright Award for Writers, the Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa award 2015, the European Atlas of Lyrics 2016, and the Blue-Met World Through Poetry award 2017. His novels include The Song of Tahira (2001), a fictional epic in metered prose and The Kingdom (2015), a novel about the life of King David. He also published 8 books of his translations from English and from Ancient Greek, including The Gospel of Thomas and an anthology of Classical Erotic Poetry. Or is the founder of Helicon Poetry Society and the Hebrew-Arabic Poetry School. He has served as national coordinator of the U.N-sponsored Poets for Peace and currently as editor of the Catuv poetry series.
Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered “internal refugees” or “present-absent aliens.” Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.
In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a “resistance poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.
Mahmoud Darwish’s early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that “as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul.” Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: “Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception.”
Poet Naomi Shihab Nye commented on the poems in Unfortunately It Was Paradise: “[T]he style here is quintessential Darwish—lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant—and never anything less than free—what he would dream for all his people.”
Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.