Corner view: Birds

To a Young Poet

By Mahmoud Darwish

Translated By Fady Joudah 

           Don’t believe our outlines, forget them
           and begin from your own words.
           As if you are the first to write poetry
           or the last poet.

           If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,
           but to correct our errs
           in the book of agony.

           Don’t ask anyone: Who am I?
           You know who your mother is.
           As for your father, be your own.

           Truth is white, write over it
           with a crow’s ink.
           Truth is black, write over it
           with a mirage’s light.

          If you want to duel with a falcon
          soar with the falcon.

         If you fall in love with a woman,
         be the one, not she,
         who desires his end.

         Life is less alive than we think but we don’t think
         of the matter too much lest we hurt emotions’ health.

         If you ponder a rose for too long
         you won’t budge in a storm.

        You are like me, but my abyss is clear.
        And you have roads whose secrets never end.
        They descend and ascend, descend and ascend.

       You might call the end of youth
       the maturity of talent
       or wisdom. No doubt, it is wisdom,
       the wisdom of a cool non-lyric.

       One thousand birds in the hand
      don’t equal one bird that wears a tree.

       A poem in a difficult time
       is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.

      Example is not easy to attain
      so be yourself and other than yourself
      behind the borders of echo.

      Ardor has an expiration date with extended range.
      So fill up with fervor for your heart’s sake,
      follow it before you reach your path.

      Don’t tell the beloved, you are I
      and I am you, say
      the opposite of that: we are two guests
      of an excess, fugitive cloud.

       Deviate, with all your might, deviate from the rule.

       Don’t place two stars in one utterance
       and place the marginal next to the essential
       to complete the rising rapture.

       Don’t believe the accuracy of our instructions.
       Believe only the caravan’s trace.

       A moral is as a bullet in its poet’s heart
       a deadly wisdom.
       Be strong as a bull when you’re angry
       weak as an almond blossom
       when you love, and nothing, nothing
       when you serenade yourself in a closed room.

       The road is long like an ancient poet’s night:
       plains and hills, rivers and valleys.
       Walk according to your dream’s measure: either a lily
       follows you or the gallows.

      Your tasks are not what worry me about you.
      I worry about you from those who dance
      over their children’s graves,
      and from the hidden cameras
      in the singers’ navels.

      You won’t disappoint me,
      if you distance yourself from others, and from me.
      What doesn’t resemble me is more beautiful.

      From now on, your only guardian is a neglected future.

      Don’t think, when you melt in sorrow
      like candle tears, of who will see you
      or follow your intuition’s light.
      Think of yourself: is this all of myself?

       The poem is always incomplete, the butterflies make it whole.

       No advice in love. It’s experience.
       No advice in poetry. It’s talent.
       And last but not least, Salaam.

I am reading a book by Suzanne Joinson, discovering Kashgar and poems of other word. Sorry for not writting too much, but I am working on the shop, will be open soon.