By Mahmoud Darwish:
    
 I COME FROM THERE
   
 I come from there and I have memories.
 Born as mortals are, I have a mother
 and a house with many windows.
 I have brothers, friends,
 and a prison cell with a cold window.
 Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls.
 I have my own view,
 and an extra blade of grass.
 Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
 and the bounty of birds,
 and the immortal olive tree.
 I walked this land long before swords
 turned man into prey
    
 * * * * *
    
 I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
 when the sky weeps for her mother.
 And I weep to make myself known
 to a returning cloud.
 To break the rules, I have learned all the words
 needed for a trial by blood.
 I learned all the words and broke them up
 to make a single word: Homeland.....

 

  by Steve Bloom:

 I DID NOT KNOW MAHMOUND DARWISH
 BEFORE HE DIED
 
 Consider all the poems I will never know,
 sunrises I cannot see,
 songs no one has ever sung to me,
 all those who walk past
 on the sidewalk
 without a name-tag pinned
 close to their hearts.
   
 Yet each has a story to tell
 if only we would learn how to listen.
 
 * * * * * 

 One obituary described him as a poet
 who was “known for political works,
 but proudest of his personal verses.”
   
 It is hard for me to determine
 whether the verse I recite for you now is political
 or personal.
 As a fellow poet I’m inclined to believe
 that Mahmoud might
 have shared this conundrum. 

 * * * * *
 I did not know Mahmoud Darwish
 before he died. 

 Still, he helps me learn how to listen:
 to the waves snatched by seagulls,
 or to random beings who sometimes
 find themselves with an extra blade of grass--
 sharing words that will sing to us
 forever,
  
 because his was a personal story.
 And his was a political story.
 And his story can be called
 by the names: “Palestine,”
 and “Homeland”--
 which will always remain
 close to our hearts.
  
 * * * * * 
  
 I did not know Mahmoud Darwish
 before he died. 
 
 And yet I have a chance,
 to know him now, after
 the sunset, decide
 to weep for each individual
 who remains unrecognized
 by a returning cloud and,
 in this way,
 tell Mahmoud “hello” today,
 rather than “Goodbye.”