Ghassan Zaqtan

Will the children forgive the generation that’s trampled by horses of war, by exile and preparation for departure? Will they think of us as we were, a bunch of ambushes in ravines we’d shake our jealousy and carve trees into the earth's shirt to sit under, we, the factional fighters who’d shoo the clouds of war out of their vehicles and peer around our eternal siege or catch the dead like sudden fruit fallen on a wasteland? Will the children forgive what we were, some missile shepherds and masters of exile and frenzied celebration, whenever a neighboring war gestured to us we rose to set up in its braids a place good for love and residence? The bombing rarely took a rest the missile launchers rarely returned unharmed we rarely picked flowers for the dead or went on with our lives If only that summer had given us a bit of time's space before our mad departure Will they believe?

1 I will cry to regret and slaughter my heart on a desolate rock in the steppe and run in the wilderness run in their illusions in the mirrors of bullets while shooing victory and defeat and also the dead with war's twig 2 I will arch my back like a noble wolf and howl in the plains until the plains go mad and the god of soldiers spots me lifeless in war's meanness I'd be pleased yet angry and forlorn of seas that have tolled for thirty centuries they come and go 3 I call to my friend and leave him standing in speech I call to my lover and leave her insomniac

And I will bend down to smell his desire his tomb's flowers and marble his wilting joy his swapping temptation for content And I will keep him from the cold, visitors, oleander, and the sons of bitches and say: No one will resemble me like my father his white stumbling and the illusion that plucks words A shout that walks on two feeble legs eyes me with the summer of discontent and sprinkles me with water, turns me green before it shakes the bitter dirt off its fingers … that's my father he cried from a darkness in the grave And I will gather the house of your chucked absence as if we were alone on Earth … you die so I can fold the falcon's wings after its departure and believe the silence that remains

No dead on the streets today is a calm day, traffic is normal, there's ample room for the procession of yesterday's dead, room to add a dream, an idea, a little boy, an extra push for the beloved boat, a nom de guerre for the cell, a rose for a new love, a hand to a comrade Some room to stay alive for some time, enough time to shake your hands and reach the sun Today is a calm day, a pedestrian day in Beirut dancing in the streets, obstructing buses and not buying newspapers: the newspapers already went out to offices and the dead are resting on the Pavement of Martyrs at the outskirts of Sabra A calm day, our neighbor will step out in her nightgown to hang some sleepiness around us, some sluggish waking she's too lethargic to gather letters into words Where is life on this vast sauntering morning? We won't leave Out of the whiteness of her gown a reason will come to carry us down to the streets dead in her "Good morning"

Near the camp was a river and in our house were absentees and hands that will one day wake us in vain I had just turned seven while he was sitting in the shade ironing his clothes the blue jacket sagging over his shoulders I paid no attention to the road or the three steps and didn't notice the carpet I don't remember who was it that said to me or to another "When you grow up poetry will become your house" The dust that eats the memories always distances those folks yet their chairs appear from afar, from behind the hills and over the houses, to hang in an air of summer and holm oak, those shaded chairs that reach the heart on shoulders topped with five flowers Which flowers are speech which flowers are silence? And I can't remember whether it was my uncle who stood at the door, whether we had palm and lotus trees in our house in Karameh, whether my mother who gave birth to me on the shelf was folding our clothes behind our father's back so he could sleep The watchdogs used to cry from the heat, and poetry, Husseini of Jerusalem, and Khidr the mystic were all in our house as was my uncle who came from a pond within Hebron's walls Twenty years would pass before a photo could tell us we have grown older and that's that My father used to discompose his friends with his days, and women with the thread of seduction in his voice as he would sprinkle chatter in their rivers while walking about here or there with a lilt, he'd let his days fall off him and let others gather them as he walked on gold that came only for him And I can't remember: in our courtyard there were holm oaks, a fountain, a tiled floor by a huge door, we were confused and in a hurry The closet that faced us in the second room had a mirror the mirror we now seek And my father was standing alone in the hall that led the stairs to the roof thanking his days or preparing for Wednesday's nap or Thursday's morning as he left, among the things he'd leave, the water can full of water while around his chairs our Saturdays rose My father didn't want too much from life: a house, five boys who don't mess with his papers, which were already chaos, and two girls so that braids could float all around the house