Mahmoud Darwish

I know I am behind on blogs.  I have to write about my Indiana Jones-esque excursion last week to Wadi Hasa, among other things.  But right now I want to share a poem by the late Mahmoud Darwish, who was declared "the voice of the Palestinian people."  I have to write an essay about him in Arabic as part of a midterm, and stumbled across this poem called Identity Card.  This poem seems to capture the sentiment I have picked up in conversation with Palestinians in Jordan.  Which reminds me of this conversation I had last night that I will share, but don't have time because it is already past eleven and this essay isn't finished!  Anyways, appreciate the poem.   

"Put it on record./ I am an Arab/ And the number of my card is fifty thousand/ I have eight children/ And the ninth is due after summer./ What's there to be angry about?

"Put it on record./ I am an Arab/ Working with comrades of toil in quarry./ I have eight children/ For them I wrest the loaf of bread,/ The clothes and exercise books/ From the rocks/ And beg for no alms at your door,/ Lower not myself at your doorstep,/ What's there to be angry about?

"Put it on record./ I am an Arab./ I am a name without a title,/ Patient in a country where everything/ Lives in a whirlpool of anger./ My roots/ Took hold before the birth of time/ Before the burgeoning of the ages,/ Before cypress and olive trees,/ Before the proliferation of weeds./ My father is from the family of the plough/ Not from highborn nobles./ And my grandfather was a peasant/ Without line or genealogy./ My house is a watchman's hut/ Made of sticks and reeds./ Does my status satisfy you?/ I am a name without a surname.

"Put it on record./ I am an Arab./ Color of hair: jet black./ Color of eyes: brown./ My distinguishing features:/ On my head tje 'iqal cord over a keffiyeh/ Scratching him who touches it./ My address:/ I am from a village, remote, forgotten,/ Its streets without name/ And all its men in the fields and quarry.

"What's there to be angry about?

"Put it on record./ I am an Arab./ You stole my forefathers' vineyards/ And land I used to till,/ I and all my children,/ And you left us and all my grandchildren/ Nothing but these rocks./ Will your government be taking them too/ As is being said?

"So!/ Put it on record at the top of page one:/ I don't hate people,/ I trespass on no one's property./ And yet, if I were to become hungry/ I shall eat the flesh of my usurper./ Beware, beware of my hunger/ And of my anger!"

- Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008