( More poems by Margaret Boles)
 

A Poem by Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi

Love poem for Mahmoud Darwish


Until morning

I stood by the wall ,chest to chest,

leaning my head on your shoulders

and crying.



No, I can’t believe that you’ve left me,

after all those years, Darwish !

I thought you’d stay,

just like your picture in this old frame,

waiting for my kisses

with each new poem you wrote.



You were not supposed to die,

leaving me alone to write for you.

It was always you who wrote

for the wounds of love,

for the lilac flowers,

for the lost homeland:

Poems that crossed frontiers

In a caravan ladden with words

To reach my solitude at nights.



Even death does not make you a stranger to me Darwish!

I kiss your frameless image again and again;

I kiss your eyes, lips and fragrant foerhead

and I remember my grandmother's words

whenever she was praying in my room:

"what is this picture of a stranger doing in your room?"



No one in this world was as familiar to me as you Darwish!

different from other men in my life.

Your mission was not to darken or brighten my memories.

You were like a messenger from the mountain heights

who revealed to me the hidden meaning of words

with each new poem.



Miraculously you made blind the eyes

of the spider weaving sorrow and absurdity

in the sticky corners of my mind.




With you

I became another "I"

much different than my dark and tired "I"s.

With you

I became a nation with shining open eyes.



Bless the memories of those far days Darwish!



When I found your first poetry book

my mirror had not even one single white hair

how proud I was of my beauty !

not aware of the yellow leaves gone with the wind.



In those far days I wanted poetry

only for warming up my nights

only for giving wings to my dreams

I thought that the domain of words

was above the clouds, even higher.

Then suddenly in my first encounter

with your poetry,

you filled my room with the rubble of ruined cities,

with the sound of a boy’s footsteps

running in exile

lighting lamps from house to house,

with the magic of words.



Without homeland,

with a suitcase of eternal wanderings,

you were the only poet, Darwish,

who taught me

the meaning of motherland.



Your melodious wounds taught me

this is blood which illuminates the world,

and the sun is nothing but burning memory

around which the Earth moves

in the redolent silence of merry Martyrs

in tombs more unknown now than ever before.



Do you remember, Darwish,

in those far days, in the gloomy compartments

of the train passing through dark tunnels?

I was nursing hope for a job, a future

to reach the vague share of my heart

from fate and mate,

with your poetry book lying on my lap

watching over me when I was asleep.



I can’t believe you have left me, Darwish.

No one believed you died, not even the thousands

who carried your coffin.

You bore the weight of the tombstone

as does a flower the weight of the dew,

while your voice went on to read

through the loudspeakers, warm, lively and inspiring.

But the flowers your enemies strew on your grave

tormented you Darwish!

as if you were offered hell at the first night of the tomb.



Three days public mourning

for you who were not a general,

or a president,

not even the voice of refugees any more.

Breaking away from the crowd

you devoted your songs to the bleak birds of Al-Jalil.



Three days public mourning

for you who vested power in the words

without coup d'etat,

without massacre

and without usurping the lands of people.



Three days public mourning

for you who had no legacy but

the thirsty whiteness of paper,

so satisfied with living

in the frame of old friendships,

to adorn the walls of lethal loneliness;

a sanctuary for your survivors

to lean on your generous shoulders and cry

unable to accept your death Darwish !

Note by the Poet


I did not intend to write an elegy on Mahmoud Darwish. I only tried to express my admiration for an exceptional poet. Sometimes a poet produces a much deeper effect on our lives than our parents and our family members. A true poet points to a window which opens to an undiscovered world in us and thus releases us from spiritual confusion. In the words of Samuel Hazo , poems bring us face to face with our true nature where our feelings gain as much significance as our ideas. We are cut off from our true selves when we lose contact with our basic nature and thus lose our souls.

Darwish was the guardian of the soul of a nation.



Translated by:H.S.Zahedi,chief editor of Irannews ' art section

Edited by : George Trialonis , Greek poet and translator.

This poem in Farsi appears here: http://www.firooze.com/article-fa-629.html

 

ASTONISHMENT

I stretch out the water
in which you are reflected.
With a shout to stop
all possible outflows.

I address you by breath
such release of speech.
Until you are glassy with ice before me
as before a draught.

Tirelessly you quiver under the numb surface
and on the bottom for a moment gleam
so that I glimpse the day,
which will only light up in you.

(translated by James Sutherland Smith)

(More poems Pavol Janik )