Appreciation Post : To My Favorite Poet

All Poems

by Mahmoud Darwish 

( 1941 - 2008 )

All Hilightened Part May Be My Fav Sentences

#1

To a Young Poet

Don’t believe our outlines, forget them 

and begin from your own words. 

As if you are the first to write poetry 

or the last poet.

If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs, 

but to correct our errs 

in the book of agony.

Don’t ask anyone: Who am I?

You know who your mother is.

As for your father, be your own.

Truth is white, write over it 

with a crow’s ink.

Truth is black, write over it

with a mirage’s light.

If you want to duel with a falcon

soar with the falcon.

If you fall in love with a woman, 

be the one, not she,

who desires his end.

Life is less alive than we think but we don’t think

of the matter too much lest we hurt emotions’ health.

If you ponder a rose for too long

you won’t budge in a storm.

You are like me, but my abyss is clear. 

And you have roads whose secrets never end.

They descend and ascend, descend and ascend.

You might call the end of youth 

the maturity of talent

or wisdom. No doubt, it is wisdom,

the wisdom of a cool non-lyric.

One thousand birds in the hand

don’t equal one bird that wears a tree.

A poem in a difficult time 

is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.

Example is not easy to attain

so be yourself and other than yourself 

behind the borders of echo.

Ardor has an expiration date with extended range.

So fill up with fervor for your heart’s sake,

follow it before you reach your path.

Don’t tell the beloved, you are I 

and I am you, say

the opposite of that: we are two guests

of an excess, fugitive cloud.

Deviate, with all your might, deviate from the rule.

Don’t place two stars in one utterance

and place the marginal next to the essential 

to complete the rising rapture.

Don’t believe the accuracy of our instructions. 

Believe only the caravan’s trace.

A moral is as a bullet in its poet’s heart 

a deadly wisdom.

Be strong as a bull when you’re angry 

weak as an almond blossom 

when you love, and nothing, nothing 

when you serenade yourself in a closed room.

The road is long like an ancient poet’s night: 

plains and hills, rivers and valleys.

Walk according to your dream’s measure: either a lily

follows you or the gallows.

Your tasks are not what worry me about you.

I worry about you from those who dance 

over their children’s graves,

and from the hidden cameras

in the singers’ navels.

You won’t disappoint me, 

if you distance yourself from others, and from me. 

What doesn’t resemble me is more beautiful.

From now on, your only guardian is a neglected future.

Don’t think, when you melt in sorrow 

like candle tears, of who will see you 

or follow your intuition’s light.

Think of yourself: is this all of myself?

The poem is always incomplete, the butterflies make it whole.

No advice in love. It’s experience.

No advice in poetry. It’s talent.

And last but not least, Salaam.

#2

If I Were Another

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—

that’s what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another!

#3

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..... 

© All Copyrights to Mahmoud Darwish, I don't own anything.

sources: https://www.poetryfoundation.org