Olives for Hope

I Belong There
by Mahmoud Darwish

I belong there.
I have many memories. I was born as everyone was born.
I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends
and a prison cell with a chilly window!
I have a wave snatched by seagulls,
a panorama of my own.
I have a saturated meadow.
In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon,
a bird's sustenance,
and an immortal olive tree.
I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.
I belong there.
Where heaven mourns for her mother,
I return heaven to her mother.
And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.
To break the rules,
I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.
I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home