A Traveler

Mahmoud Darwish

(March 13, 1941- August 9, 2008) 

This road takes me; a horse guiding a horseman

A traveler like me cannot look back

I have walked far enough to know

where autumn begins

There, behind the river,

the last pomegranates ripen

in an additional summer

and a beauty mark grows

in the seed of the apple

The road and I will sleep like partners

behind the river, beneath our shadows

Then rise at dawn and carry each other

I will ask it: Why so fast?

Slow down, O horse saddled with seasons!

No matter how few our dreams

we will cross the desert and valleys

to reach the end at the beginning

The beginning is behind us

Before us clouds bringing winter’s tidings

I have walked far enough to know

where winter starts:

There, over the hill

A gazelle looks for a fawn under the clouds

A hunter points his rifle

I will howl like a wolf

so the white gazelle can flee the fire

and the hunter is scared

The road and I will sleep

There, next to a cave, over the hill

Then rise at dawn and carry each other

Asking: What next? Where are you taking me?

I see the fog, but I don’t see the road

nor does it see me

Have I arrived? 

Or have I been separated from the road?

I asked myself, then said:

Now, from this distance,

a traveler like me

can look back!

[Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon. From Darwish’s posthumous collection, La Uridu Li-Hadhi ‘l-Qasidati An Tantahi (I Don’t Want this Poem to End)(Beirut: Riyad El-Rayyes Books, 2009)]