The Beautiful Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish
The poet Mahmoud Darwish has composed numerous remarkable poems, a selection of which is presented below:
The Most Beautiful Love
In his poem “The Most Beautiful Love,” Mahmoud Darwish writes:
Just as grass sprouts between the crevices of a rock,
One day we found ourselves like strangers,
While the spring sky orchestrated stars… and stars.
I composed a verse of love..
For your eyes.. I sang it!
Do your eyes know that I waited long,
Like a summer bird awaiting the warm winds?
I slept… like the exile sleeps,
One eye closing to awaken the other… for long.
And weeping for its sister,
We are lovers until the moon falls asleep,
And we know that hugs and kisses
Are the sustenance of romantic nights,
And that the morning calls my steps to continue
On a new day’s path!
We are friends, so walk beside me, hand in hand,
Together we create news and songs.
Why should we question this road… to what fate
Does it lead us?
And from where did it gather our footsteps?
Let it be enough, as it is for you and me, that we walk…
Together, forever.
Why do we search for songs of sorrow
In an old poetry collection?
And we ask, oh love, will it last?
I love you as caravans love a meadow of grass and water,
And as the poor love their bread!
And we remain companions always.
For Another Evening
Every peach of the earth grows within a body,
And the word is born,
Desire ignites.
The shadow has fallen upon it,
No one,
No one…
And it sings alone
In the alleys of abandoned carts.
Everything to it
Is a title for the ear of wheat,
And it sings alone:
The lakes are many,
Yet it is the only river.
My story was brief,
And it is the only river.
I will see it in winter
When it kills me,
And it will weep
And laugh
And I will see it in winter.
I remember
Or I do not remember,
Time has evaporated
In train stations
And in its steps.
It resembled love,
Air shattering
Between two strange faces,
And waves solidifying
Between two close chests,
And I do not remember her…
For another evening, this evening
And I call for her roses,
The earth vanishes
When she weeps alone.
My words are words
For windows, the sky,
For birds, the space,
For footsteps, the path, and for the river, the outlet,
And I belong to memories.
And she is the first. I am the first.
We were. We weren’t.
Winter came
Without killing me…
Without making me weep or laugh.
The One O’Clock Train
Mahmoud Darwish states:
A man and a woman part,
Shaking the petals from their hearts,
They break apart.
The shadow emerges from the shadow
And they become three:
A man,
A woman,
And time…
The train does not arrive,
So they return to the café,
Speaking in another tone,
They harmonize
And love the dawn rising from guitar strings
And do not part…
.. And I glance around this heart’s plazas.
A street calls me, and companions enter the cellar, forgetting in Madrid.
I remember nothing of the woman except for her face or my joy…
I forget you, forget you, and forget you so much
If we are just a little late
For the one o’clock train.
If we sat for an hour in the Chinese restaurant,
If returning birds passed by.
If we read the night newspapers
We would be
A man and a woman who encounter each other.
She in the Evening
She is alone in the evening,
And I am alone like her…
Between her and the candles in the winter restaurant,
Two empty tables (nothing disturbs our silence)
She does not see me as I see her
When she picks a rose from her breast,
And I too do not see her as she sees me
When I sip from my wine like a kiss…
She does not crumble her bread,
And I too do not spill water
On the paper tablecloth
(Nothing disrupts our tranquility)
She is alone, and I in front of her beauty
Alone. Why do fragility and tenderness not unite us?
I said to myself,
Why do I not taste her wine?
She does not see me as I see her
When she lifts her leg over her other leg…
And I too do not see her as she sees me
When I take off my coat…
Nothing troubles her with me,
Nothing troubles me, for we now
Are harmonizing in oblivion…
Our dinner, each alone, was delicious,
The voice of the night was blue,
I was not alone, nor was she alone,
We were together listening to the blues…
(Nothing breaks our night)
She does not say:
Love is born as a living entity
And becomes an idea.
And I too do not say:
Love has become a notion,
But it seems so…
A Lover from Palestine
Your eyes are a thorn in the heart,
Causing me pain.. and I worship them,
And protect them from the wind,
And sheath them behind the night and the sorrows.. I sheath them
As its wound ignites the light of the lamps
And makes my present dearer than my soul’s tomorrow.
And I forget, after a while, in a meeting of eye with eye
That once we stood behind the door, as two!
Your words were a song,
I tried to sing along,
But misery surrounded the spring’s compassion.
Your words were like swallows that flew from my house,
So they sought refuge beyond our door, and our autumn threshold
Following you, where longing desired..
And our mirrors shattered
Until sorrow became two thousand
And we gathered the fragments of sound!
We excelled at nothing but the elegy of the homeland,
We will remove it together from the chest of a guitar
Upon the surfaces of our catastrophe, we will play it
For distorted moons… and stones.
But I forgot… I forgot, oh unknown voice:
Is your departure the rust of the guitar… or my silence?!
I saw you yesterday in the port,
A traveler with no kin… no provisions,
I ran to you like orphans,
Asking the wisdom of the ancestors:
Why does the green orange tree pull
To prison, to exile, to the port,
And despite its journey
And the scents of salt and longing,
Always remains green?
And I write in my notebook:
I love the orange. I hate the port.
And I add in my notebook:
At the port
I stood. The world was eyes of winter
And the orange peel is ours. And behind me is the desert!
I saw you in the mountains of thorns
A shepherdess without sheep,
Chased, and in ruins..
And you were my garden, and I a stranger in the home
Knocking at the door, oh my heart,
On my heart..
The door, the window, the cement, and the stones rise!
I saw you in the vessels of water and grain
Shattered. I saw you serving in the night cafés
I saw you in the rays of tears and wounds.
And you are the other lung in my chest..
You are the voice on my lips..
You are the water, you are the fire!
I saw you at the cave door… at home,
Hanging on a clothesline, your children’s garments
I saw you in the hearths.. in the streets..
In the stables.. in the blood of the sun
I saw you in the songs of orphanhood and misery!
I saw you filled with the salt of the sea and sand
And you were beautiful like the earth.. like the children.. like the jasmine.
And I swear:
From the eyelashes, I will sew a handkerchief
And engrave on it for your eyes
A name when I water it, a heart that melted in a tune..
Extending the awnings of the thicket..
I will write a sentence dearer than martyrs and kisses:
She was Palestinian.. and she remains!
I opened the door and window in the night of storms
To a moon that solidified in our nights
And I said to my night: Your turn!
Behind the night and the wall..
There is a promise with words and light..
And you are my virgin garden..
As long as our songs
Are swords when we draw them,
And you are faithful like wheat..
As fertilizer when we sow it,
And you are like a palm tree in my mind,
That has not been broken by a storm or a woodcutter
And has not had its braids cut
By the beasts of the wilderness and the jungle..
But I am the exile behind the wall and the door
Take me under your eyes
Take me, wherever you are
Take me, however you are
To restore the color of your face and body
And the light of the heart and the eyes
And the salt of the bread and the melody
And the taste of the land and the homeland!
Take me under your eyes
Take me a painted canvas in a shack of regrets
Take me a verse from the book of my tragedy
Take me a toy… a stone from the house
So future generations remember
Our path home!
Palestinian of the eyes and the tattoo
Palestinian of the name
Palestinian of the dreams and the worries
Palestinian of the handkerchief, the feet, and the body
Palestinian of the words and silence
Palestinian of the voice
Palestinian of birth and death
I carried you in my old notebooks
The fire of my poetry
I carried you as provisions for my travels
And in your name, I cried out in the valleys:
Roman steeds! I know them
Even if the battlefield shifts!
Beware..
Of the lightning that my song struck against the flint
I am the youth’s adornment, and the knight of knights
I am. And the shattering of idols.
I plant the borders of Syria
With poems that launch the eagles!
And in your name, I cried to the enemies:
Devour my flesh if I sleep, oh worms
For ants do not birth eagles..
And the egg of the snake..
Its shell hides a serpent!
Roman steeds.. I know them
And I know before them that I
Am the youth’s adornment, and the knight of knights.