Monday, February 12
PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER
O! How alone we are!
All the others have won their wars
and you were left in your mud,
barren.
Darwish, don’t you know?
No poetry will return to the lonely
what was lost, what was
stolen.
How alone we are!
This is another age of ignorance. Cursed are those
who divided us in war and marched in your funeral
as one.
How alone we are!
This earth is an open market,
and your great countries have been auctioned away,
gone!
How alone we are!
This is an age of insolence,
and no one will stand by our side,
Never.
O! How alone we are!
Wipe away your poems, old and new,
and all these tears. And you, O Palestine,
pull yourself together.
(Hiba Abu Nada,
translated from Arabic by Huda Fakhreddine)