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Rest in peace, Mahmoud Darwish
Related to country: Palestine

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

The world has lost a prolific, talented poet and writer. Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet, passed on yesterday, August 9th, 2008, aged 67 years old.

A candle goes out,
A legacy left behind
For the younger generation to carry on.
May God bless him,
Rest his soul
In peace.

In Jerusalem
by Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

August 10, 2008 | 1:24 AM Comments  3 comments

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Comments

ABDALHADI ABDALHADI ALIJLA
August 10, 2008 | 2:52 AM
Mahmoud Darweesh
Mahmoude Dareweesh ...inventor of hope
bjahjooh Belal jahjooh
August 14, 2008 | 9:41 PM
I would like to see the same again and again
Mahmoude Dareweesh ...inventor of hope
xy Emgee
August 26, 2008 | 1:02 PM
Mahmoud Darwish
Shuk'hran jiddan- Mr Darwish - your poetry lives on.

Allah ir hamou - ma'a sala'ama
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