Birthday Post

This post and video are dedicated to my mother, who turns 80 on Tuesday, 14th February. I love you, mum, always have, always will. The poem was written by the late Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.



Next Post: "Thoughts in Progress", to be published on Saturday 18th February at 6pm (GMT)

Of Language and Other Topics

Synchronicity (n): Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived in Jungian theory as an explanatory principle on the same order as causality.


Example of synchronicity.

Tuesday 29th July. Pack up books to take to summer camp. 'If This is a Man/The Truce', 'Down and Out in Paris and London', 'Telling Tales', 'Mario Benedetti: Antologia Poetica' and Mahmoud Darwish's 'The Butterfly's Burden'.

Wednesday 30th July - Wednesday 6th August. Read through Mario Benedetti and Mahmoud Darwish's poems in order to select one that will make it into my wife's birthday card.

Friday 8th August. Write chosen poem in card (it's Darwish's 'Sonnet IV') . Wrap it up and put it away until next day.

Saturday 9th August. Give card to my wife for her birthday. She is deeply touched by the poem.

Sunday 10th August. Change blog's header. Insert quote by Mahmoud Darwish included in his book, 'A State of Siege'.

Monday 11th August. Read Mahmoud Darwish's obituary in the paper.


Sometimes synchronicity can be cruel.

Mahmoud Darwish, poet, born March 15 1941; died August 9 2008

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
I come from there.
I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word:
Homeland.....

Copyright 2008

Summer Camp in Dorset (Recitative)

Poem read in silence at Dorset Summer Camp whilst outside my tent the sky is weeping, the grass is laughing and the diminutive wild life in the undergrowth continues to wage war and broker peace with itself.


With the drinking glass studded with lapis
Wait for her,
By the pool around the evening and the rose perfume
Wait for her,
With the patience of the horse prepared for mountain descent
Wait for her,
With the manners of the refined and marvellous prince
Wait for her,
With seven pillows stuffed with light clouds
Wait for her,
With the sandalwood male scent around the backs of horses
Wait for her,
And don’t hurry, so if she arrives late
Wait for her,
And if she arrives early
Wait for her,
And don’t startle the birds in her braids
And wait for her,
So that she sits comfortably in her beauty’s summit in the garden
And wait for her,
So she may breathe this strange air upon her heart
And wait for her,
So that she lifts her dress off her calf cloud by cloud
And wait for her,
Take her to a balcony to see a moon frowning in milk
And wait for her,
Offer her water, before wine, and don’t
Look at twin partridges sleeping on her chest
And wait for her,
Slowly touch her hand
When she places the glass on the marble
As if you were carrying dew for her
And wait for her,
Talk to her as a flute talks
To a frightened violin string
As if you two were witnesses to what tomorrow prepares for you
And wait for her
Brighten her night ring by ring
And wait for her
Until the night says to you:
You are the only two left in the universe
So take her, gently, to your desired death
And wait for her! …

A Lesson from Kama Sutra

Mahmoud Darwish
Taken from ‘The Stranger’s Bed’ (1998)


Copyright 2008

Mahmoud Darwish: As the Land is the Language

Sonnet I

If you are the last of what god told me, be
the pronoun revealed to double the "I". Blessedness is ours
now that almond trees have illuminated the footprints of passersby, here
on your banks, where above you grouse and doves flutter

With a gazelle's horn you stabbed the sky, then words flowed
like dew in nature's veins. What a poem's name
before the duality of creation and truth, between the faraway sky
and your cedar bed, when blood longs for blood, and marble arches?

A myth will need to sunbathe around you. This crowdedness,
these gods of Egypt and Sumer under the palm trees change their dresses
and their days' names, and complete their journey to the end of rhyme...

And my song needs to breathe: poetry isn't poetry
and prose isn't prose. I dreamt that you are the last of what god told me
when I saw you both in my sleep, then there were words...

In his translator's preface of 'The Butterfly's Burden', Fady Joudah points out that when 'The Stranger's Bed', Mahmud Darwish's first bok of love appeared many readers felt ambivalent about it. It seems to me that that is the price many writers committed to a political cause tend to pay. Audiences, whether involved in the same struggle or not, could feel alienated, or worse, they might feel that their beloved political figure is going soft. But the reader should rest assured for there is nothing soft about the twenty-nine poems that make this volume. There is passion aplenty and longing for his beloved land. This is mixed with some of the more beautiful lines ever written by a living poet. Lines such as: 'If you are the last of what god told me/be
the pronoun revealed to double the "I" where the desire to become one and only with the object of his affection is declared openly and unashamedly. Lines like: 'With a gazelle's horn you stabbed the sky/then words flowed like dew in nature's veins' whereby feelings gush out of the poet's soul baring the genesis of his poetry. These poems show that a writer's voice needn't inhabit just the political ether but the deepest realm of the senses, too.

Mahmoud Darwish: As the Land is the Language

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories

Born as mortals are, I have a mother

And a house with many windows,

I have brothers, friends,

And a prison cell with a cold window.

Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,

I have my own view,

And an extra blade of grass.

Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,

And the bounty of birds,

And the immortal olive tree.

I walked this land before the swords

Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there.

I render the sky unto her mother

When the sky weeps for her mother.

And I weep to make myself known

To a returning cloud.

I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood

So that I could break the rule.

I learnt all the words and broke them up

To make a single word: Homeland.....

An exile's anthem is made of past images, present uncertainties and future hopes. The exile does not always migrate willingly. Sometimes they are forced to. And sometimes they are forced by 'swords that turned their lands into a laden table'. Their memory becomes a slideshow of mementos from their beloved land. And each keepsake bears the image of 'the bounty of birds and the immortal olive tree'.

Mahmud Darwish: As the Land is the Language. Dir: Simone Bitton & Elias Sanbar. 60 mins, Israel/France 1998. Documentary on the famous Palestinian poet, his life and works. Q&A after the screening with a panel of specialists.

The ArtsZone,
54 - 56 Market Square,
London,
N9 0TZ
Wednesday 27th February.
This film is part of "Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran" festival.
7pm (doors will open at 6.30pm)
Box office number 020 8 887 9500
E-mail: info@enfieldartspartnership.org
Admission: £5/£4 concs
(OAPs, students, people on benefits and disabled people, proof of ID required).
Early Bird Discount: Book before Wednesday 13th February and pay only £3
For more info click here

Mahmoud Darwish: As the Land is the Language

Identity Card

Record!

I am an Arab

And my identity card is number fifty thousand

I have eight children

And the ninth is coming after a summer

Will you be angry?

Record!

I am an Arab

Employed with fellow workers at a quarry

I have eight children

I get them bread

Garments and books

from the rocks...

I do not supplicate charity at your doors

Nor do I belittle myself

at the footsteps of your chamber

So will you be angry?

Record!

I am an Arab

I have a name without a title

Patient in a country

Where people are enraged

My roots

Were entrenched before the birth of time

And before the opening of the eras

Before the pines, and the olive trees

And before the grass grew.

My father..

descends from the family of the plow

Not from a privileged class

And my grandfather..was a farmer

Neither well-bred, nor well-born!

Teaches me the pride of the sun

Before teaching me how to read

And my house

is like a watchman's hut

Made of branches and cane

Are you satisfied with my status?

I have a name without a title !

Record!

I am an Arab

You have stolen the orchards

of my ancestors

And the land

which I cultivated

Along with my children

And you left nothing for us

Except for these rocks..

So will the State take them

As it has been said?!

Therefore!

Record on the top of the first page:

I do not hate peopleNor do I encroach

But if I become hungry

The usurper's flesh will be my food

Beware..

Beware..Of my hunger

And my anger !

You could be mistaken for thinking that the author of this poem is yelling at his listener. No, he is not, he is merely stating staunchingly what sets him apart from the rest. He is reclaiming his space on this planet in the same way oppressed people have always done, firmly and looking into the oppressor's eyes as they talk to them. Far from agreeing to be treated like a native of Lilliput, Mahmoud grows in stature and cadence and as the poem reaches its finale, we are under no suspicion that the writer is not only proud to be an Arab but that his interlocutor would be out of his mind to think that Mr Darwish could ever consider another denouement. The questions he asks in the first two stanzas serve to reinforce the idea of him as a run-of-the-mill human being and yet why is his interrogator so angry? Is he angry at him for being human or for being an Arab? If it is the former, that means that the anonymous person hates us all, and that means to me that Mahmoud does not so much have a specific nationality or religion in mind (Jewish or Christian) but a specific status: power. If it is the latter, then, he reminds his tormentor that you can only repress for so long before anger swells up and explodes. He uses the old Gandhian gambit of showing the oppressor their own humanity so that they feel embarrassed of their own excesses should they ever set out to annihilate others. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, it doesn't. Like in Bosnia, or Palestine.

Thanks Mahmoud for giving the oppressed's voice a poem.

Mahmud Darwish: As the Land is the Language. Dir: Simone Bitton & Elias Sanbar. 60 mins, Israel/France 1998. Documentary on the famous Palestinian poet, his life and works. Q&A after the screening with a panel of specialists.
The ArtsZone,
54 - 56 Market Square,
London,
N9 0TZ
Wednesday 27th February

This film is part of "Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran" festival.

7pm (doors will open at 6.30pm)

Box office number 020 8 887 9500

E-mail: info@enfieldartspartnership.org

Admission: £5/£4 concs

(OAPs, students, people on benefits and disabled people, proof of ID required).

Early Bird Discount: Book before Wednesday 13th February and pay only £3

For more info click here

Mahmoud Darwish: As the Land is the Language

My Mother

I long for my mother's bread

My mother's coffee

Her touch

Childhood memories grow up in me

Day after day

I must be worth my life

At the hour of my death

Worth the tears of my mother.

And if I come back one day

Take me as a veil to your eyelashes

Cover my bones with the grass

Blessed by your footsteps

Bind us together

With a lock of your hair

With a thread that trails from the back of your dress

I might become immortal

Become a God

If I touch the depths of your heart.

If I come back

Use me as wood to feed your fire

As the clothesline on the roof of your house

Without your blessing

I am too weak to stand.

I am old

Give me back the star maps of childhood

So that I

Along with the swallows

Can chart the path

Back to your waiting nest.

Has a voice ever taken over yours turning your thoughts into their lines, uttering the similes and metaphores with which to describe a person you love? Have you ever felt so completely mesmerised at the beauty of a poem and yet embarrassed that it was not your pen that glided over the paper on which it was written?

It was the line 'And if I come back one day/Take me as a veil to your eyelashes' that tore me apart exposing my beating heart for all to see. Who would not want to be there to look after that who looked after us when that malicious fever took hold of our body rendering us incapable of even lifting one hand all those years ago? Who would not be willing to sever their right arm to save the life of that who gave us ours?

Thanks, Mahmoud, for giving my voice a poem.

Mahmud Darwish: As the Land is the Language. Dir: Simone Bitton & Elias Sanbar. 60 mins, Israel/France 1998. Documentary on the famous Palestinian poet, his life and works. Q&A after the screening with a panel of specialists.

The ArtsZone, 54 - 56 Market Square, London, N9 0TZ

Wednesday 27th February. This film is part of "Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran" festival.
7pm (doors will open at 6.30pm)

Box office number 020 8 887 9500
E-mail: info@enfieldartspartnership.org

Admission: £5/£4 concs (OAPs, students, people on benefits and disabled people, proof of ID required).
Early Bird Discount: Book before Wednesday 13th February and pay only £3

For more info click here