A Music Sentence
A poet now, instead of me,
writes a poem
on the willow of distant wind.
So why does a rose in the wall
wear new petals?
A boy now, instead of us,
sets a dove flying
high toward the cloud ceiling.
So why does the forest shed all
this snow around a smile?
A bird now, instead of us,
carries a letter
from the land of the gazelle to the blue.
So why does the hunter enter the scene
and fling his arrow?
A man now, instead of us,
washes the moon
and walks over the river's crystal.
So why does color fall on the earth
and we are naked like trees?
A lover now, instead of me,
sweeps his love
into the mire of bottomless springs.
So why does the cypress stand here
like a watchman at the garden gate?
A horseman now, instead of me,
stops his horse
and dozes under the shadow of a holm oak.
So why do the dead flock
to us out of wall and closet?
______________
Mahmoud Darwish
If I Were Another
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009
translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah
