As I try to come to terms once again with what is happening in Gaza, I came across another fabulous poem by my favorite Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, who so eloquently can put to words the feelings we all have as Palestinians, which boil inside of us, sometimes never finding an audience or outlet, sometimes drowning us with their complexity and force and unrequitedness. It was fwded around by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir.
The siege is lying in wait.
It is lying in wait on a tilted stairway
in the midst of a storm.
We are alone. We are alone to the point
of drunkenness with our own aloneness,
with the occasional rainbow visiting.
We have brothers and sisters overseas..
kind sisters, who love us..
who look our way and weep.
And secretly they say
"I wish that siege was here, so that I couldŠ"
But they cannot finish the sentence.
Do not leave us alone. No.
Do not leave us alone.
Our losses are between two and eight a day.
And ten are wounded.
Twenty homes are gone.
Forty olive groves destroyed,
in addition to the structural damage
afflicting the veins of the poem, the play,
and the unfinished painting.
(Mahmud Darwish, A State of Siege, 2002, translated by Ramsis Amun)
The siege is lying in wait.
It is lying in wait on a tilted stairway
in the midst of a storm.
We are alone. We are alone to the point
of drunkenness with our own aloneness,
with the occasional rainbow visiting.
We have brothers and sisters overseas..
kind sisters, who love us..
who look our way and weep.
And secretly they say
"I wish that siege was here, so that I couldŠ"
But they cannot finish the sentence.
Do not leave us alone. No.
Do not leave us alone.
Our losses are between two and eight a day.
And ten are wounded.
Twenty homes are gone.
Forty olive groves destroyed,
in addition to the structural damage
afflicting the veins of the poem, the play,
and the unfinished painting.
(Mahmud Darwish, A State of Siege, 2002, translated by Ramsis Amun)
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