A River Dies of Thirst

Haifa says to me: ‘From now on, you are you!’

Did somebody once say that the master of words is the master of place? This is neither vanity nor a game. It is the poet’s way of defending the value of words, and the stability of place in a language which is vowelised and therefore mobile.

There is a region in my heart, uninhabited, which welcomes children looking for an unoccupied area to pitch their summer camp.

There is no mist. It’s just a pine tree on Mount Carmel whispering to a cedar on Mount Lebanon: ‘Good evening, sister.’

I couldn’t see a general to ask him: ‘What year did you kill me?’ but I saw soldiers sipping beer on the pavements and waiting for the end of the approaching war, so that they could go to university to study Arab poetry written by the dead who have not died. And I am one of them.

Haifa! Strangers are right to love you and compete with me for what you possess, and forget their own countries when they are near you, because you are just like a dove building her nest on the nose of a gazelle.

Mountains, sea and air. I fly and swim, as if I am an air-sea bird. As if I am a poet!

Deep inside me there is a hidden music, and I am afraid of it being played solo.

I walk lightly so as not to crush my cheerfulness. I walk heavily so as not to fly. In both cases the ground protects me from disappearing into adjectives that cannot be used to describe it.

Time and history make alliances sometimes, and fight one another at others on the borders dividing them. The tall willow tree pays no heed, for it stands on the open road.