Mahmud Darwish lamented
First Published: 2008-08-13
‘Send me an embarrassed tune written with your silent eyes’, recites Iqbal Tamimi in dedication to Palestinian national poet Mahmud Darwish.
Leave your sin on my palm before you go
We came from the same tribe of drifters
I left my head behind
Dangling in the well
Swinging with the horsing doors
Can you …please!
Leave on my palm your sin before you go
Or send me
An embarrassed tune
Written with your silent eyes
That we have made a hole
In that ugly apartheid wall
And that I have left behind a poem
Sunbathing with your olive trees in the dunes
And that we
Have paved the way
For armies of wise shoes
Because the feet colluded with heads
Did not know how to choose
And that I…
Have fallen between the letters
Got stuck between two commas
Because I was the shepherd of my wild dream
I was only declaring my fears to strangers
Rebelling against the snow
Shivering whenever I read a map
That does not lead home
Or whenever a nation of ignorance
Called my country by a pseudonom
Last night
I saw love sneaking from the crack of my dream
Rarely do I commit such follies
So.. if you don’t mind..
Please
Leave your algaes on my shirt
It might just bloom some peace
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist, researcher and poet from Hebron, currently working in the UK.
