Sunday, February 8, 2009

State of Seige

By Mahmoud Darwish

Tomorrow we will love life.
When tomorrow comes, life will be something to adore
just as it is, ordinary, or tricky
gray, or colourful…stripped of judgement day and
purgatory… and if joy is a necessity
let it be
light on the heart and the back
Once embittered by joy, twice shy

[To a killer:] If you reflected upon the face
of the victim you slew, you would have remembered
your mother in the room full of gas. You would have freed
yourself of the bullet’s wisdom, and changed your mind: ‘I
will never find myself thus.’

[To another killer:] If you left the foetus thirty days
in its mother’s womb, things would have been different.
The occupation would be over and this suckling infant
would forget the time of the siege and grow up a healthy
child reading at school, with one of your daughters
the ancient history of Asia.
They might even fall in love
and give birth to a daughter [she would be Jewish by birth].
What, then, have you done now?
Your daughter is now a widow
and your granddaughter an orphan.
What have you done with your scattered family?
And how have you slain three doves in one story?


Reem is one of 8 US lawyers visiting Gaza as reps of the US National Lawyers Guild...the devastation and horror she is witnessing is not just beyond words, it is beyond tears...but she has managed to share her words (and tears) here.

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