Palestinian Songs of Liberation

The Palestinians, Poet Mahmoud Darweesh once wrote, are a people who have "no homeland, no flag and no address." But they do have a strong sense of nationhood. Even children who have never been there talk vividly about life in the Old City of Jerusalem or the beauty of Mount Carmel and the orange groves of Jaffa. In part, the Palestinians' collective memory of homeland and the dream of return are kept alive by a large body of nostalgic Arabic poetry, written by angry young lyricists who know both the harshness of Israeli prisons and the despair of life in refugee camps. Some of these Palestinian "songs of liberation":

THE IMPOSSIBLE

It is much easier for you To pass an elephant through a needle's eye, Or catch fried fish in a galaxy, Plough the sea, Force a crocodile to speak Than to destroy by persecution The shimmering glow of a belief, Or check our march, One single step.

As if we were a thousand prodigies Spreading everywhere In Lydda, in Ramallah, in the Galilee... Here we shall stay, A wall upon your breast, And in your throat we shall stay, A piece of glass, a cactus thorn, And in your eyes, A blazing fire. --Tawfiq Zayad

LOVER FROM PALESTINE

I saw you on thorny hills A sheepless shepherd--chased I saw you on the ruins and once You were a green orchard I stood a stranger Knocking at your door The doors, the windows, the cemented stone Vibrated.

I saw your face in the wells In the granaries--torn I saw you a waitress in the night cafes I saw through the tears and wounds And you are the words on my lips You are the fire-- And the water.

I saw you at the mouth of a cave Hanging your orphan's rags I saw you in the stalls, in the streets Warming your self by the fire I saw you in the lamentations of misery In blood dripping from the sun In the salt of the sea and the sand and yet You were as beautiful as the earth As children--

I swear From my eyelashes I shall weave you A kerchief With words sweeter than honey And kisses I shall write: Palestinian you were And so you will remain. --Mahmoud Darweesh

LETTER FROM PRISON

Mother, It pains me, mother, That you burst in tears When friends knock, Asking about me.

But I believe, Mother, That the splendor of life Is born in my prison; And I believe that My final visitor Will not be an eyeless bat.

It shall be the day. It shall be the day. --Sameeh al-Qassem

AN ADDRESS

She asked: "Where lives the 'Prince'?" Then, I stood silenced For I had no address, l am a man in transit, Twenty years in transit A man who was even deprived The right of having an address. --Rashid Hussein

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