"Stranger! awaken–"

On finding ourselves in each other

Palestinian Doll's Thob al-Malek Royal Dress, 9th century. Public Domain.

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If I Were Another

by Mahmoud Darwish

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked
back, I would have said what one traveler said
to another: Stranger! awaken
the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road
may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued
from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am
so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,
neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar
and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts
the traveler to test gravity. I am only
my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.
If I were another on the road, I would have
hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem
would be of water, diaphanous, white,
abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,
and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:
My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said
to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!
Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—
that’s what my new song would say. Whenever
the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two
on this road: I ... and another!

From The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish, English translation by Fady Joudah. Copper Canyon Press, 2008.

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Creative Invitation

In whose eyes do you feel most daring?
Whose reflection of you back to yourself feels like home?
Whose eyes reveal more presence the more deeply you look at them?
With whom can you never tell a lie?

Who helps you hold on to hope or creativity whilst we drown in atrocities?
Who do you want to make a safer world for?
Who protects you? Who do you protect?
Look at yourself in the mirror.

Look again, more tenderly.

Kiss yourself on one shoulder, then the other.
It takes courage to live in this world.
Thank you.