[The following is a selection from the poems that were read on May 2, 2011, at a special memorial evening held at the University of Washington in Seattle to honor the memory of Hussein Al-Barghouti (1954-2002). They been have been translated especially for Jadaliyya in order to draw the attention to the remarkable poetry of this Palestinian poet, who graduated from the University of Washington in 1992 with a PhD in Comparative literature. After his return to Palestine in the same year and until his premature death, Al-Barghouti was an influential poet, professor, critic, playwright, scholar and a dedicated patron of Palestinian culture. The literary legacy that Al-Barghouti left behind includes more than sixteen books of poetry, essays, criticism, folklore, memoires, prose and novel, most notably the posthumous memoires The Blue Light (2004) and I Will Be Among the Almond Tree (2004). The following poems capture some of the themes and sensibilities that characterize these memoirs, particularly the poetics of memory and place and the deep attachment to nature in the Palestinian landscape that fueled Al-Barghouti’s keen interest in existentialism.]
Poems by Hussein Al-Barghouti
State of Mind
I live and my heart goes out to no one.
I feel no sadness
and harm no roses.
Like black grease on a wheel
in the belly of a machine,
all inside me mechanical.
Birds made of rubber in a cage of colored sand
and my face a fountain in winter-- flowing
New coldness in the air. I lean
where the "powers" throw me: towards memories
from old cities, or a shop full of words that look like a lit-up bar
where jazz is playing and the customers sleep at the tables.
I pass by, in me the bitterness of a shadow
and my eyes are boredom and metal.
[untitled]
Do not guide me to the moonlit path
daughter of my uncle
The guided must walk the path of the guide
Each must forge his own path.
Do not guide me to the moonlit path
while the flute is on the lips of the mermaid
This is too little--
Guide me to the truth
and leave me silent,
like the mountains of the Galilee.
[untitled]
The waterfalls were forty seven,
all falling in one pool.
The last was pure and foamy
and I followed it.
The waterfalls were forty seven,
all falling in one pool.
The last was like my heart
but I lost it.
[untitled]
We came to crack some songs
Just as we crack almonds
and search there for doves.
We found little stone soldiers
inhabiting words.
[untitled]
Your white fingers pass through my dream
like ten mirrors
where I see my face like a fire without smoke
O my desire for tenderness
Don`t wound my heart!
It happens in my dream that I long for you
and alight in your eyes
like a flock of doves
on a city sidewalk in winter
and I peck at the vibration of light in the puddles and ask:
"O street full of lights! What is the color of the sky?
And why are they dancing? "
"Where can I pass when breast is upon breast?" (Mahmoud Darwish)
Sometimes I dance there, a stranger
among strangers on a street
with snow from the moon
where neon lamps are breasts of glass
washing my face in faded-white light
near ice that had frozen over
ivory fountains.
Do not ask me:
"Why do you like to travel
in the waves of my eyes?"
Fish swim deep
when they sense the coming of a quake
and the trembling of things.
My love of trembling: my search is for my soul
Regardless of the end
Whether a kiss or the guillotine.
So come to me
that I may carry your wild body in my palm
like a compass
and watch you spread
like light upon the ships of words.
[untitled]
The roads of modern airports open out to
labyrinths of light.
In every darkness we have a light, and
in every light we have a path, and
in every path we have a span, and
in every span, we have a trap, and
in every trap, we have the meat of a thigh, and
in every thigh, we are the first to be blamed!
In every song we have a letter, and
in every letter we have a love, and
in every love we have a heart, and
in every heart we have tranquility, a gazelle and a homeland.
So forgive me
for I descended from trees of blood, or ice or nothingness
like a sad flock of birds of prey.
And I was told:
You have no voice
In life,
and afterwards there is only sleep
On a land without a grave,
no fate leads to hell and no way to paradise
So,
come, like the birds, if you wish
out of the rot of now, or the rot of yesterday.
[untitled]
In Jerusalem, under the golden dome
The language of God above the geometric wall is saturated with blue,
black and maroon in the letters Mim and Ra`.
If you see a sky half blue and half black
And the sun is red like ink--there is my sky
Among the pines, and the shade and the singing of birds
with the color of earth,
I forgot "Kitab Al-Aghani"[1]
And engraved on the dome of my eyelids the letters of change and waves
And a desert of stars above the caravan of Al-Asfahani
When you see Jerusalem, pass by
that golden dome
The language of God above the geometric wall is saturated
with the yellow of the narcissus.
Among the whiteness of doves in the Persian rugs
between the first arches of a green night,
among the apples and the gold,
the lover of geometries crucified me.
Don`t blame me if I don`t circle around the Prophet:
My aim is God
And God has no form that I may shape my life by calling upon Him
I appeal to you to go see Jerusalem
O child of the waves, shades of lilacs!
Greet her
and kiss
the earth there
and adorn your eyes
with the slope of the shadow
Pass your chest by her water
and if you were to be asked:
"Are you playing or ritually washing?"
Say: I touch the essence of things with my heart
to become pure
under a sky that I do not own.
[Translated by Amal Eqeiq. With special thanks to Ibrahim Muhawi for editorial assistance.]
[1] "Kitab Al-Aghani"- (The Books of Songs) is one of the most famous and important books in classical Arabic literature. It was composed by Abu Al-Faraj Al-Asfahani in the 10th century over the span of fifty years. The book is collection of songs, poems and detailed descriptions of daily life and traditions in Arabia.