Tag Archives: Sumer
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Continuing after the Passerby with a poem by Mahmoud Darwish

I chose Sonnet I by Mahmoud Darwish to end this series of the image of the passerby. This poem can be found the the Mahmoud Darwish compilation book The Butterfly’s Burden.

If you are the last of what god told me, be
the pronoun revealed to double the I. Blessedness is ours
now that almond trees have illuminated the footprints of passersby, here
on your banks, where above you grouse and doves flutter

With a gazelle’s horn you stabbed the sky, then words flowed
like dew in nature’s veins. What’s a poem’s name
before the duality of creation and truth, between the faraway sky
and your cedar bed, when blood longs for blood, and marble aches?

A myth will need to sunbathe around you. This crowdedness,
these gods of Egypt and Sumer under palm trees change their dresses
and their days’ names, and complete their journey to the end of ryhme…

And my song needs to breathe: poetry isn’t poetry
and prose isn’t prose. I dreamt that you are the last of what god told me
when I saw you both in my sleep, then there were words…

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