in homage

I Belong There

I belong there. I have many memories. 
I was born as everyone is born.
I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, 
and a prison cell with a chilly window! 
I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.
I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word,
I have a moon, a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.
I have lived on the land long before swords turned man
into prey.
I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother,
I return heaven to her mother.
And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.
To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed
for a trial by blood.
I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw
from them a single word:
Home.

- Mahmoud Darwish –
13 March 1941 - 9 August 2008

Mahmoud Darwish
the poet of Palestinian people