I'm from there, I'm from here.

Mahmoud Darwish

"I'm from there, I'm from here."

He says:  I am from there.  I am from here

But neither am I there, nor here.

I have two names.  They meet and they depart…..

And two languages, I have forgotten in which I used to dream.

I have English for writing

Its vocabulary is obedient,

Yet, I have another language from the dialogue of the Heavens

With Jerusalem. its cadence is silvery

But it does not obey my imagination.

And your identity?  I said.

He said: Self-defense …

Identity is the offspring of birth, but

In the end, it is the creative act of its owner.  Nay

It is not a vestige of the past.  I am multi-dimensional…

Within me is my rejuvenated exterior.  But

I belong to the question of the victim.

Had I not been from there, I would have trained my heart

 To grow up there the gazelle of metonymy….

Carry your country wherever you go and be

A narcissist if need be/

- The external world is an exile

So is the internal world

And between them, who are you?

< I do not define myself lest I lose myself.  I am what I am.

I am my other in a dualism

Of harmony between words and intimation.

Had I been writing poetry, I would have said:

I am two in one

Like the two wings of a sparrow

If the spring season was delayed

I would be content to

Bring glad tidings!

He loves a homeland, but he deserts it.

[Is the unattainable far away?]

He loves traveling towards anything

In the free-faring among cultures.

Researchers for the human essence may find

Sufficient seats for all…..