Ramadan Kareem to those of you who are observing this month. Here’s a poem from the late great Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008), whose words I grew up with and who has long been a touchstone of mine.
“And We Love Life”
And we love life if we find a way to it.
We dance in between martyrs and raise a minaret for violet or palm trees.
We love life if we find a way to it.
And we steal from the silkworm a thread to build a sky and fence in this departure.
We open the garden gate for the jasmine to go out as a beautiful day on the streets.
We love life if we find a way to it.
And we plant, where we settle, some fast growing plants, and harvest the dead.
We play the flute like the color of the faraway, sketch over the dirt corridor a neigh.
We write our names one stone at a time, O lightning make the night a bit clearer.
We love life if we find a way to it…
translated from Arabic by Fady Joudah
live in the layers 