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......"


Shed a tear today for Mahmoud Darwish, the poet of the Resistance, who has died following heart surgery. Born in 1941 in the village of Barweh, Palestine, he became the voice of the expelled, the dispossessed. His spirit joins Abu Amar, George Habash, Naji al-Ali, Edward Said and the tens of thousands of ordinary people who never lived to see their homeland again and who fought so that Palestine could be free.