Passport

Portrait of Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish 1941–2008

They did not recognize me in the shadows That suck away my color in this Passport And to them my wound was an exhibit For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs They did not recognize me, Ah . . . Don't leave The palm of my hand without the sun Because the trees recognize me Don't leave me pale like the moon!

All the birds that followed my palm To the door of the distant airport All the wheatfields All the prisons All the white tombstones All the barbed Boundaries All the waving handkerchiefs All the eyes were with me, But they dropped them from my passport

Stripped of my name and identity? On soil I nourished with my own hands? Today Job cried out Filling the sky: Don't make and example of me again! Oh, gentlemen, Prophets, Don't ask the trees for their names Don't ask the valleys who their mother is >From my forehead bursts the sward of light And from my hand springs the water of the river All the hearts of the people are my identity So take away my passport!

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