Masoud

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968

“تُنسى كأنك لم تكن

تنسى كمصرع طائر

ككنيسة مهجورة تنسى

كحب عابر

وكوردة في الريح

وكوردة في الثلج

تنسى

انا للطريق

هناك من سبقت خطاه خطاي

من املى رؤاه على رؤاي

هناك من نثر الكلام على سجيته

ليعبر في الحكاية

او يضيء لمن سيأتي بعده

أثرا غنائيا وجرسا

تُنسى كأنك لم تكن

شخصا ولا نصا..وتنسى

امشي على هدي البصيرة

ربما أعطي الحكاية سيرة شخصية

فالمفردات تقودني وأقودها

انا شكلها

وهي التجلي الحر

لكن قيل ما سأقول

يسبقني غد ماض

انا ملك الصدى لا عرش لي الا الهوامش

فالطريق هو الطريقة

ربما نسي الأوائل وصف شيء ما

لاوقظ فيه عاطفة وحسا

تنسى كأنك لم تكن خبرا ولا أثرا وتنسى

انا للطريق

هناك من تمشي خطاه على خطاي

ومن سيسبقني الى رؤياي

من سيقول شعرا في مديح حدائق المنفى امام البيت

حرا من غدي المقصوم

من غيبي ودنياي

حرا من عبادة الأمس

من فردوسي الأرضي

حرا من كناياتي ومن لغتي

فأشهد أنني حر وحي حين..أُنسى”
― محمود درويش

“Forgotten, as if you never were.
Like a bird’s violent death
like an abandoned church you’ll be forgotten,
like a passing love
and a rose in the night . . . forgotten

I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps preceded mine
those whose vision dictated mine. There are those
who scattered speech on their accord to enter the story
or to illuminate to others who will follow them
a lyrical trace . . . and a speculation

Forgotten, as if you never were
a person, or a text . . . forgotten

I walk guided by insight, I might
give the story a biographical narrative. Vocabulary
governs me and I govern it. I am its shape
and it is the free transfiguration. But what I’d say has already been said.
A passing tomorrow precedes me. I am the king of echo.
My only throne is the margin. And the road
is the way. Perhaps the forefathers forgot to describe
something, I might nudge in it a memory and a sense

Forgotten, as if you never were
news, or a trace . . . forgotten

I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps
walk upon mine, those who will follow me to my vision.
Those who will recite eulogies to the gardens of exile,
in front of the house, free of worshipping yesterday,
free of my metonymy and my language, and only then
will I testify that I’m alive
and free
when I’m forgotten!

~ tr. Fady Joudah”
― Mahmoud Darwish