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Safana Apr 17
Persians gave terrorists a gift
and hypocrisy gives rise to silence.
These are poems about Palestinian children and their mothers...

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Epitaph for a Palestinian Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Find in her pallid, dread repose,
no hope, alas!, for a human Rose.



who, US?
by Michael R. Burch

jesus was born
a palestinian child
where there’s no Room
for the meek and the mild

… and in bethlehem still
to this day, lambs are born
to cries of “no Room!”
and Puritanical scorn …

under Herod, Trump, Bibi
their fates are the same—
the slouching Beast mauls them
and WE have no shame:

“who’s to blame?”



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable …

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss …

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears …



For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?



Night Labor
by Michael R. Burch

for Rachel Corrie

Tonight we keep the flame alive;
we keep the candle lit.
We burn bright incense in your name
and swear we’ll not forget—
your innocence, your courage,
your commitment—till bleak night
surrenders to irrevocable dawn
and hate yields to love’s light.

Amen.



Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch

Jews and Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).



I, too, have a dream …
by the Child Poets of Gaza (a pseudonym of Michael R. Burch)

I, too, have a dream …
that one day Jews and Christians
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
staring down the barrels of their big bazookas,
knowing I did nothing
to deserve such scorn.



Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness—time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough …
and time?—insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask—

what is the source, whence comes the desire
of a woman to love as no God may require?



Suffer the Little Children
by Nakba, an alias of Michael R. Burch

for the children of Gaza

I saw the carnage ... saw girl’s dreaming heads
blown to red atoms, and their dreams with them ...

saw babies liquefied in burning beds
as, horrified, I heard their murderers’ phlegm ...

I saw my mother stitch my shroud’s black hem,
for in that moment I was once of them ...

I saw our Father’s eyes grow hard and bleak
to see his roses severed at the stem.

How could I fail to speak?



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure!
Your intentions were noble and ineluctably pure.
And what the hell does THE LORD care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



King of the World
by the Child Poets of Gaza, an alias of Michael R. Burch

If I were King of the World, I would make
every child free, for my people’s sake.

And once I had freed them, they’d all run and scream
back to my palace, for free ice cream!

Why are you laughing? Can’t a young king dream?

If I were King of the World, I would banish
hatred and war, and make mean men vanish.

Then, in their place, I’d bring in a circus
with lions and tigers (but they’d never hurt us!)

Why are you laughing? What else is a king’s purpose?

If I were King of the World, I would teach
the preachers to always do as they preach;

and so they could practice being of good cheer,
we’d have Christmas —and presents—every day of the year!

Why are you laughing? Some dreams do appear!

If I were King of the World, I would send
my counselors of peace to the wide world’s end …

But all this hard dreaming is making me thirsty!
I proclaim Pink Lemonade; please bring it in a hurry!

Why are you laughing? Mom’ll make it in a flurry!

If I were King of the World, I’d declare
a year of happiness, with no despair—

only playing allowed, for my joyful subjects!
Not a toy left behind! Repair all rejects!

Why are you laughing? Surely no one objects!

If I were King of the World, I would fire
racists and bigots, with their message so dire.

And we wouldn’t build walls, to shut people out.
I would build amusement parks, have no doubt!

Why are you laughing? Should I use my clout?

If I were King of the World, I would drive
a red Ferrari, like no man alive!

But behind would be busses for my legions of friends:
we’d party like maniacs; the fun never ends!

Why are you laughing? Hop aboard! Let’s be friends!

If I were King of the World, I would make
every child blessed, for my people’s sake,

and every child safe, and every child free,
and every child happy, especially me!

Why are you laughing? Appoint me and see!

Keywords/Tag: Palestinian, child, Palestine, Gaza, children, mothers, death, grave, Israel, USA
These are poems about Palestinian children and their mothers, fathers and families.
Michael R Burch Dec 2021
The Story
by Kamal Nasser
translation by Michael R. Burch

I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief ... gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.

Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet and Palestinian Christian, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak (born Ehud Brog) later ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His adopted Hebrew name Barak means "lightning." As a younger man, Brog/Barak was a member of a secret assassination unit that liquidated Palestinians in Lebanon and the occupied territories. In the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, which was part of the larger Operation Wrath of God, he disguised himself as a woman in order to assassinate Palestinians. The raid resulted in the deaths of two women, one of them an elderly Italian. Two Lebanese policemen were also killed, along with the poet Kamal Nasser.

Nasser was the PLO's most prominent Christian and he enjoyed "great appeal" in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq "both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality." He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra. Nasser “had the most democratic outlook of all Palestinian leaders at the time,” he recalls. He respected opposing views, admired the commitment of young people, and was a major recruitment asset for the Palestinian revolution. “That is why he was put high on the hit-list.” The previous year, the Israelis had murdered another renowned Palestinian writer and activist in Beirut, Ghassan Kanafani, by *****-trapping his car. Nasser’s successor, Majed Abu Sharar, was also assassinated by Israelis, in Rome in 1981 while attending a conference in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Keywords/Tags: Kamal Nasser, Palestinian, Palestine, PLO, Conscience, Ramallah, Christian, religion, poet, Arab, Arabic, Arab Spring, betrayal, conflict, courage, devotion
Hussein Dekmak May 2021
Sixty-seven children have been slaughtered.
Sixty-seven dreams have been shattered.
Sixty-seven beautiful faces have now vanished.
Sixty-seven vibrant smiles have faded.
Sixty-seven beds are left empty.

Palestinian children, like all children, love to play.
Palestinian children are longing for peace.
The children of Gaza dream to be teachers, nurses, artists, engineers, and doctors.
Palestinian children want to breathe.
Palestinian children's lives matter!

(Palestinian children killed by Israel in Gaza in May, 2021)

Hussein Dekmak
Michael R Burch Oct 2020
Mahmoud Darwish: English Translations

Mahmoud Darwish is the essential breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging ... his is an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered.―Naomi Shihab Nye



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's trembling beginnings,
a boulder covered with moss,
mothers who dance to the flute's sighs,
and the invaders' fear of memories.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
September's rustling end,
a woman leaving forty behind, still full of grace, still blossoming,
an hour of sunlight in prison,
clouds taking the shapes of unusual creatures,
the people's applause for those who mock their assassins,
and the tyrant's fear of songs.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
Lady Earth, mother of all beginnings and endings!
In the past she was called Palestine
and tomorrow she will still be called Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life!



Identity Card
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Record!
I am an Arab!
And my identity card is number fifty thousand.
I have eight children;
the ninth arrives this autumn.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
Employed at the quarry,
I have eight children.
I provide them with bread,
clothes and books
from the bare rocks.
I do not supplicate charity at your gates,
nor do I demean myself at your chambers' doors.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
I have a name without a title.
I am patient in a country
where people are easily enraged.
My roots
were established long before the onset of time,
before the unfolding of the flora and fauna,
before the pines and the olive trees,
before the first grass grew.
My father descended from plowmen,
not from the privileged classes.
My grandfather was a lowly farmer
neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Still, they taught me the pride of the sun
before teaching me how to read;
now my house is a watchman's hut
made of branches and cane.
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name, but no title!

Record!
I am an Arab!
You have stolen my ancestors' orchards
and the land I cultivated
along with my children.
You left us nothing
but these bare rocks.
Now will the State claim them
as it has been declared?

Therefore!
Record on the first page:
I do not hate people
nor do I encroach,
but if I become hungry
I will feast on the usurper's flesh!
Beware!
Beware my hunger
and my anger!

NOTE: Darwish was married twice, but had no children. In the poem above, he is apparently speaking for his people, not for himself personally.



Excerpt from “Speech of the Red Indian”
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let's give the earth sufficient time to recite
the whole truth ...
The whole truth about us.
The whole truth about you.

In tombs you build
the dead lie sleeping.
Over bridges you *****
file the newly slain.

There are spirits who light up the night like fireflies.
There are spirits who come at dawn to sip tea with you,
as peaceful as the day your guns mowed them down.

O, you who are guests in our land,
please leave a few chairs empty
for your hosts to sit and ponder
the conditions for peace
in your treaty with the dead.



Passport
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They left me unrecognizable in the shadows
that bled all colors from this passport.
To them, my wounds were novelties―
curious photos for tourists to collect.
They failed to recognize me. No, don't leave
the palm of my hand bereft of sun
when all the trees recognize me
and every song of the rain honors me.
Don't set a wan moon over me!

All the birds that flocked to my welcoming wave
as far as the distant airport gates,
all the wheatfields,
all the prisons,
all the albescent tombstones,
all the barbwired boundaries,
all the fluttering handkerchiefs,
all the eyes―
they all accompanied me.
But they were stricken from my passport
shredding my identity!

How was I stripped of my name and identity
on soil I tended with my own hands?
Today, Job's lamentations
re-filled the heavens:
Don't make an example of me, not again!
Prophets! Gentlemen!―
Don't require the trees to name themselves!
Don't ask the valleys who mothered them!
My forehead glistens with lancing light.
From my hand the riverwater springs.
My identity can be found in my people's hearts,
so invalidate this passport!



Excerpts from "The Dice Player"
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

I am not a stone
burnished to illumination by water ...

Nor am I a reed
riddled by the wind
into a flute ...

No, I'm a dice player:
I win sometimes
and I lose sometimes,
just like you ...
or perhaps a bit less.

I was born beside the water well with the three lonely trees like nuns:
born without any hoopla or a midwife.

I was given my unplanned name by chance,
assigned to my family by chance,
and by chance inherited their features, attributes, habits and illnesses.

First, arterial plaque and hypertension;
second, shyness when addressing my elders;
third, the hope of curing the flu with cups of hot chamomile;
fourth, laziness in describing gazelles and larks;
fifth, lethargy dark winter nights;
sixth, the lack of a singing voice.

I had no hand in my own being;
it was mere coincidence that I popped out male;
mere coincidence that I saw the pale lemon-like moon illuminating sleepless girls
and did not unleash the mole hidden in my private parts.

I might not have existed
had my father not married my mother
by chance.

Or I might have been like my sister
who screamed then died,
only alive an hour
and never knowing who gave her birth.

Or like the doves’ eggs
smashed before her chicks hatched.

Was it mere coincidence
that I was the one left alive in a traffic accident
because I didn’t board the bus ...
because I’d forgotten about life and its routines
while reading the night before
a love story in which I became first the author,
then the lover, then the beloved and love’s martyr ...
then overslept and avoided the accident!

I also played no role in surviving the sea,
because I was a reckless boy,
allured by the magnetic water
calling: Come to me!
No, I only survived the sea
because a human gull rescued me
when he saw the waves pulling me under and paralyzing my hands!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you
outside the church door?

I'm nothing but a dice throw,
a toss between predator and prey.

In my moonlit awareness
I witnessed the massacre
and survived by sheer chance:
I was too small for the enemy to target,
barely bigger than the bee
flitting among the fence’s flowers.

Then I feared for my father and family;
I feared for our time as fragile as glass;
I feared for my pet cat and rabbit;
I feared for a magical moon looming high over the mosque’s minarets;
I feared for our vines’ grapes
dangling like a dog’s udders ...

Then fear walked beside me and I walked with it,
barefoot, forgetting my fragile dreams of what I had wanted for tomorrow
because there was no time for tomorrow.

I was lucky the wolves
departed by chance,
or else escaped from the army.

I also played no role in my own life,
except when Life taught me her recitations.
Are there any more?, I wondered,
then lit my lamps and tried to amend them ...

I might not have been a swallow
had the wind ordained it otherwise ...

The wind is the traveler's fate: his fortune or misfortune.

I flew north, east, west ...
but the south was too harsh, too rebellious for me
because the south is my country.
I became a swallow’s metaphor,
hovering over my life’s debris
from spring to autumn,
baptizing my feathers in the cloud-like lake
then offering my salaams to the undying Nazarene:
undying because God’s spirit lives within him
and God is the prophet’s luck ...

While it is my good fortune to be the Godhead’s neighbor ...

Just as it is my bad fortune the cross
remains our future’s eternal ladder!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?
Who am I?

I might have not been inspired
because inspiration is the lonely soul’s compensation
and the poem is his dice throw
on an unlit board
that may or may not glow ...

Words fall ...
as feathers fall to earth:
I did not plan this poem.
I only obeyed its rhythm’s demands.

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

It might not have been me.
I might not have been here to write it.
My plane might have crashed one morning
while I slept till noon
then arrived at the airport too late
to visit Damascus and Cairo,
the Louvre, and other enchanting cities.

Had I been a slow walker, a rifle might have severed my shadow from its cedar.
Had I been a fast walker, I might have disintegrated and vanished like a fleeting whim.
Had I dreamt too much, I might have lost my memories of reality.

I am fortunate to sleep alone
listening to my body's complaints
with my talent for detecting pain,
so that I call the physician ten minutes before death:
dodging death by a mere ten minutes,
continuing life by chance,
disappointing the Void.

But who am I to disappoint the Void?
Who am I?
Who?

Keywords/Tags: Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine, Palestinian, Arab, Arabic, translation, Gaza, Israel, children, mothers, injustice, violence, war, race, racism, intolerance, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Michael R Burch Jul 2020
Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

I went to Berlin to learn wisdom
from Adolph. The wild spittle flew
as he screamed at me, with great conviction:
“Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”

So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom
from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes.
“If we lose this small square,” they informed me,
earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”

I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom,
but his Book, from its genesis to close,
said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!”
(I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)

So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv
where great scholars with lofty IQs
informed me that (since I’m an Arab)
I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.

At last, done with learning, I stumbled
to a well where the waters seemed sweet:
the mirage of American “justice.”
There I wept a real sea, in defeat.

Originally published by Café Dissensus

Keywords/Tags: Einstein, Adolph, ******, Berlin, Jew, Jews, Arab, Arabs, Palestinian, Palestinians, Vietnam, Vietnamese, American, Americans, Yankees, Domino, Theory, Dominoes, Jesus, Christ, Bible, Christian, Christianity, Slave, Slaves, Slavery, Israel, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv
Michael R Burch May 2020
This Distant Light
by Walid Khazindar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bitterly cold,
winter clings to the naked trees.

If only you would free
the bright sparrows
from your fingertips
and release a smile―that shy, tentative smile―
from the imprisoned anguish I see.

Sing! Can we not sing
as if we were warm, hand-in-hand,
sheltered by shade from a sweltering sun?

Can you not always remain this way,
stoking the fire: more beautiful than expected, in reverie?

Darkness increases and we must remain vigilant
since this distant light is our sole consolation ...
this imperiled flame, which from the beginning
has constantly flickered,
in danger of going out.

Come to me, closer and closer.
I don't want to be able to tell my hand from yours.
And let's stay awake, lest the snow smother us.

Walid Khazindar was born in Gaza City. He is considered to be one of the very best Palestinian poets; his poetry has been said to be "characterized by metaphoric originality and a novel thematic approach unprecedented in Arabic poetry." He was awarded the first Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1997. Keywords/Tags: Arabic, translation, Arab, Palestine, Palestinian, Gaza, distant, light, flame, fire, autumn, winter, trees, birds, sparrows, fingertips, smile, sing, shade, sun, fire, darkness, hand, hands, snow
Michael R Burch May 2020
Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan the "Poet of Palestine"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we're together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me again,
thanks to life's cruelty.

The seas will separate us...
Oh! Oh! If only I could see you!
But I'll never know
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal this happiness from us,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at sunrise you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent! Your scent contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth absorbs the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost! Lost, and nothing remains.

Keywords/Tags: Fadwa Tuqan, Palestine, Palestinian, Arabic, translation, nothing, remains, parting, separation, loss


Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

Published by Palestine Today, Free Journal and Lokesh Tripathi



Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice—
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
and in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate and distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of our spirits in the flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

Published by This Week in Palestine, Arabic Literature (ArabLit.org) and Art-in-Society (Germany)



Labor Pains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the wind wafts pollen through ruined fields and homes.
The earth shivers with love, with the agony of giving birth,
while the Invader spreads stories of submission and surrender.

O, Arab Aurora!

Tell the Usurper: childbirth’s a force beyond his ken
because a mother’s wracked body reveals a rent that inaugurates life,
a crack through which light dawns in an instant
as the blood’s rose blooms in the wound.



Hamza
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamza was one of my hometown’s ordinary men
who did manual labor for bread.

When I saw him recently,
the land still wore its mourning dress in the solemn windless silence
and I felt defeated.

But Hamza-the-unextraordinary said:
“Sister, our land’s throbbing heart never ceases to pound,
and it perseveres, enduring the unendurable, keeping the secrets of mounds and wombs.
This land sprouting cactus spikes and palms also births freedom-fighters.
Thus our land, my sister, is our mother!”

Days passed and Hamza was nowhere to be seen,
but I felt the land’s belly heaving in pain.
At sixty-five Hamza’s a heavy burden on her back.

“Burn down his house!”
some commandant screamed,
“and slap his son in a prison cell!”

As our town’s military ruler later explained
this was necessary for law and order,
that is, an act of love, for peace!

Armed soldiers surrounded Hamza’s house;
the coiled serpent completed its circle.

The bang at his door came with an ultimatum:
“Evacuate, **** it!'
So generous with their time, they said:
“You can have an hour, yes!”

Hamza threw open a window.
Face-to-face with the blazing sun, he yelled defiantly:
“Here in this house I and my children will live and die, for Palestine!”
Hamza's voice echoed over the hemorrhaging silence.

An hour later, with impeccable timing, Hanza’s house came crashing down
as its rooms were blown sky-high and its bricks and mortar burst,
till everything settled, burying a lifetime’s memories of labor, tears, and happier times.

Yesterday I saw Hamza
walking down one of our town’s streets ...
Hamza-the-unextraordinary man who remained as he always was:
unshakable in his determination.

My translation follows one by Azfar Hussain and borrows a word here, a phrase there.



Biography of Fadwa Tuqan (aka Touqan or Toukan)

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), called the "Grande Dame of Palestinian letters," is also known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, named her “the mother of Palestinian poetry.”



Excerpts from "The Dice Player"
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

I am not a stone
burnished to illumination by water ...

Nor am I a reed
riddled by the wind
into a flute ...

No, I'm a dice player:
I win sometimes
and I lose sometimes,
just like you ...
or perhaps a bit less.

I was born beside the water well with the three lonely trees like nuns:
born without any hoopla or a midwife.

I was given my unplanned name by chance,
assigned to my family by chance,
and by chance inherited their features, attributes, habits and illnesses.

First, arterial plaque and hypertension;
second, shyness when addressing my elders;
third, the hope of curing the flu with cups of hot chamomile;
fourth, laziness in describing gazelles and larks;
fifth, lethargy dark winter nights;
sixth, the lack of a singing voice.

I had no hand in my own being;
it was mere coincidence that I popped out male;
mere coincidence that I saw the pale lemon-like moon illuminating sleepless girls
and did not unleash the mole hidden in my private parts.

I might not have existed
had my father not married my mother
by chance.

Or I might have been like my sister
who screamed then died,
only alive an hour
and never knowing who gave her birth.

Or like the doves’ eggs
smashed before her chicks hatched.

Was it mere coincidence
that I was the one left alive in a traffic accident
because I didn’t board the bus ...
because I’d forgotten about life and its routines
while reading the night before
a love story in which I became first the author,
then the lover, then the beloved and love’s martyr ...
then overslept and avoided the accident!

I also played no role in surviving the sea,
because I was a reckless boy,
allured by the magnetic water
calling: Come to me!
No, I only survived the sea
because a human gull rescued me
when he saw the waves pulling me under and paralyzing my hands!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you
outside the church door?

I'm nothing but a dice throw,
a toss between predator and prey.

In my moonlit awareness
I witnessed the massacre
and survived by sheer chance:
I was too small for the enemy to target,
barely bigger than the bee
flitting among the fence’s flowers.

Then I feared for my father and family;
I feared for our time as fragile as glass;
I feared for my pet cat and rabbit;
I feared for a magical moon looming high over the mosque’s minarets;
I feared for our vines’ grapes
dangling like a dog’s udders ...

Then fear walked beside me and I walked with it,
barefoot, forgetting my fragile dreams of what I had wanted for tomorrow
because there was no time for tomorrow.

I was lucky the wolves
departed by chance,
or else escaped from the army.

I also played no role in my own life,
except when Life taught me her recitations.
Are there any more?, I wondered,
then lit my lamps and tried to amend them ...

I might not have been a swallow
had the wind ordained it otherwise ...

The wind is the traveler's fate: his fortune or misfortune.

I flew north, east, west ...
but the south was too harsh, too rebellious for me
because the south is my country.
I became a swallow’s metaphor,
hovering over my life’s debris
from spring to autumn,
baptizing my feathers in the cloud-like lake
then offering my salaams to the undying Nazarene:
undying because God’s spirit lives within him
and God is the prophet’s luck ...

While it is my good fortune to be the Godhead’s neighbor ...

Just as it is my bad fortune the cross
remains our future’s eternal ladder!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?
Who am I?

I might have not been inspired
because inspiration is the lonely soul’s compensation
and the poem is his dice throw
on an unlit board
that may or may not glow ...

Words fall ...
as feathers fall to earth:
I did not plan this poem.
I only obeyed its rhythm’s demands.

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

It might not have been me.
I might not have been here to write it.
My plane might have crashed one morning
while I slept till noon
then arrived at the airport too late
to visit Damascus and Cairo,
the Louvre, and other enchanting cities.

Had I been a slow walker, a rifle might have severed my shadow from its cedar.
Had I been a fast walker, I might have disintegrated and vanished like a fleeting whim.
Had I dreamt too much, I might have lost my memories of reality.

I am fortunate to sleep alone
listening to my body's complaints
with my talent for detecting pain,
so that I call the physician ten minutes before death:
dodging death by a mere ten minutes,
continuing life by chance,
disappointing the Void.

But who am I to disappoint the Void?
Who am I?
Who?

Keywords/Tags: Gaza, Palestine, Palestinian, children, mothers, injustice, violence, war, race, racism, intolerance, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Michael R Burch May 2020
Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan the "Poet of Palestine"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice —
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
And in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate, yet distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of your spirit in flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

Keywords/Tags: Fadwa Tuqan, Palestine, Palestinian, Arabic, translation, existence, love, darkness, star, stars, orbit, radiance



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

Published by Palestine Today, Free Journal and Lokesh Tripathi



Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we’re together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me
thanks to life’s cruelty.

The seas will separate us ...
Oh!—Oh!—If I could only see you!
But I'll never know
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal this happiness,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at dawn you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent—your scent!—contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth gulps up the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost—lost!—and nothing remains.

Published by This Week in Palestine and Hypercritic (read in Arabic by Souad Maddahi with my translation as a reference)



Labor Pains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the wind wafts pollen through ruined fields and homes.
The earth shivers with love, with the agony of giving birth,
while the Invader spreads stories of submission and surrender.

O, Arab Aurora!

Tell the Usurper: childbirth’s a force beyond his ken
because a mother’s wracked body reveals a rent that inaugurates life,
a crack through which light dawns in an instant
as the blood’s rose blooms in the wound.



Hamza
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamza was one of my hometown’s ordinary men
who did manual labor for bread.

When I saw him recently,
the land still wore its mourning dress in the solemn windless silence
and I felt defeated.

But Hamza-the-unextraordinary said:
“Sister, our land’s throbbing heart never ceases to pound,
and it perseveres, enduring the unendurable, keeping the secrets of mounds and wombs.
This land sprouting cactus spikes and palms also births freedom-fighters.
Thus our land, my sister, is our mother!”

Days passed and Hamza was nowhere to be seen,
but I felt the land’s belly heaving in pain.
At sixty-five Hamza’s a heavy burden on her back.

“Burn down his house!”
some commandant screamed,
“and slap his son in a prison cell!”

As our town’s military ruler later explained
this was necessary for law and order,
that is, an act of love, for peace!

Armed soldiers surrounded Hamza’s house;
the coiled serpent completed its circle.

The bang at his door came with an ultimatum:
“Evacuate, **** it!'
So generous with their time, they said:
“You can have an hour, yes!”

Hamza threw open a window.
Face-to-face with the blazing sun, he yelled defiantly:
“Here in this house I and my children will live and die, for Palestine!”
Hamza's voice echoed over the hemorrhaging silence.

An hour later, with impeccable timing, Hanza’s house came crashing down
as its rooms were blown sky-high and its bricks and mortar burst,
till everything settled, burying a lifetime’s memories of labor, tears, and happier times.

Yesterday I saw Hamza
walking down one of our town’s streets ...
Hamza-the-unextraordinary man who remained as he always was:
unshakable in his determination.

My translation follows one by Azfar Hussain and borrows a word here, a phrase there.



Biography of Fadwa Tuqan (aka Touqan or Toukan)

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), called the "Grande Dame of Palestinian letters," is also known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, named her “the mother of Palestinian poetry.”

Fadwa Tuqan was born into an affluent, literary family in Nablus in 1917. Her brother Ibrahim Tuqan was the most famous Palestinian poet of his day. She studied English literature at Oxford University and won several international literary prizes.

Tuqan began writing in traditional forms, but later became a pioneer of Arabic free verse. Her work often deals with feminine explorations of love and social protest.

After the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948 she began to write about Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Then, after the Six Day War of 1967, she also began writing patriotic poems.

Her autobiography "Difficult Journey―Mountainous Journey" was translated into English in 1990. Tuqan received the International Poetry Award, the Jerusalem Award for Culture and Arts and the United Arab Emirates Award, the latter two both in 1990. She also received the Honorary Palestine prize for poetry in 1996. She was the subject of a documentary film directed by novelist Liana Bader in 1999.

Tuqan died on December 12, 2003 during the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, while her hometown of Nablus was under siege. Her poem "Wahsha: Moustalhama min Qanoon al Jathibiya" ("Longing: Inspired by the Law of Gravity") was one of the last poems she penned, while largely bedridden.

Tuqan is widely considered to be a symbol of the Palestinian cause and is "one of the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature."

In his obituary for "The Guardian," Lawrence Joffe wrote: "The Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, who has died aged 86, forcefully expressed a nation's sense of loss and defiance. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general, likened reading one of Tuqan's poems to facing 20 enemy commandos." In her poem "Martyrs Of The Intifada," Tuqan wrote of young stone-throwers:

They died standing, blazing on the road
Shining like stars, their lips pressed to the lips of life
They stood up in the face of death
Then disappeared like the sun.

Yet the true power of her words derived not from warlike imagery, but from their affirmation of Palestinian identity and the dream of return.

"Her poetry reflected the pain, loss, and anger of the Nakba, the experience of fleeing war and living as a refugee, and the courageous aspirations of the Palestinians to nationhood and return to their homeland. She also wrote about resistance to Israel’s injustices and life under Israeli military occupation, especially after Nablus fell to Israeli forces in 1967, heralding Israel’s long-term occupation of the West Bank, which remains to this day." - Zeina Azzam
Mohammed Arafat Apr 2020
Away from the brown soil where I was born,
away from the red strawberries and the yellow corn,
away from the grave of my grandfather who taught me farming,
and away from my family-jammed home with no backyard or swing,
I sing of my far land,
in which my dreams grew,
with no end.
I sing for the land that gave me patience,
that gave me bravery,
that planted love in me,
which became high green trees,
reaching the skies of other hearts,
I sing for the land where love lives,
with hate trying to replace it.

I still sing of my land,
for which I long night after night
song after song,
curse after curse,
tear after tear,
nightmare after another.

I still sing of my land,
where I lost friends and family,
where good people die, not of hunger,
but of oppression,
where good and bad exist,
where easy gets complex,
where stories are narrated by silence,
voices are heard from the dead,
and decisions are made by the foolish.
I still sing for it,
where infants are born political,
and their worrying about their rights becomes their toys.

I sing of the land, where brains are washed with fear and hate,
where farms are separated with walls,
where people are split by destruction,
where rubble shelter children,
where hearts are divided by revenge.

I will still sing for my land,
for what it gives me,
and for what it takes from me…

Mohammed Arafat
09-04-2020
I was talking to someone dear to my heart, and we both shared photos of passports. The name of my country (Palestine) on the Passover  reminded me of how much I love my homeland. My  love to my land no matter how much it gives me and how much it takes from me
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