I Was Born There, I Was Born Here by Mourid Barghouti

Author:Mourid Barghouti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2012-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Then I turn to Tamim and tell him, “If you want to be a poet, you have to begin here, among your own people and on this land.”

As he begins reading, astonishment shows on their faces at his village dialect that is no different from theirs. After reading them his poems, he sings them verses in the ‘ataba and mijana forms:

My country, forgive us if we’ve sinned.

We set off to come to you but to others inclined.

Stitch us in with the threads of your robe’s design.

Shame it were, that we be strangers in your land.

Anyone with a stick waved it in the air. Any woman good at trilling the ululations of celebration did so for this boy come from a country she didn’t know. The girls clapped for a long time and whispered among themselves. Handsome young ‘Abd al-Latif al-Barghouti climbed from the audience to Tamim’s side and started reciting more ‘ataba and mijana, in turn with him. At this (extremely rare) literary celebration of theirs, the people of the village almost forgot that basically they were weary, very weary, in a village sunk in weariness.

Later, nine whole years after we stood there, Tamim and his poetry will take on a different meaning for the people of Deir Ghassanah. They and the people of the surrounding villages will come to hear his verses. The people will fill the school playground. The child born in the Dr. Gohar Maternity Hospital on the banks of the Nile in Cairo will become the young poet of Palestine and its handsome son, with his long flowing verses, his smile, and the message of hope that these brought them, despite the long-lasting national dejection. This was a new son who was ‘theirs.’ This was a son they had discovered unexpectedly as they went about their normal daily acts of resistance and endurance. He had arrived ‘ready-made,’ as though he’d been born standing like that in some distant place and had come back to them.

Your Palestinian message, Radwa, had arrived.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.