“The Rose And The Dictionary” by Mahmoud Darwish

So be it.

For me, it’s essential,

Essential for the poet to have a new toast,

New songs.

I carry the key of legends, the relics of slaves,

And pass through a vault of incense

And pepper and the old summer,

And I see history in the form of an old man

Playing backgammon and sucking in the stars.

So be it.

For me it’s essential to reject death,

Even though my legends die.

I am searching in the rubble for light, for new poetry.

Oh, did I realise before today

That letters in the dictionary, my love, are stupid?

How do all these words live?

How do they increase? How grow up?

We still nourish them with memories’ tears,

With metaphors—and sugar!

So be it.

For me, it’s essential to reject the rose

That comes from a dictionary or a volume of poetry.

Roses sprout from a peasant’s arm, a worker’s grip;

Roses sprout on a warrior’s wound,

On the forehead of a rock.