Friday, January 01, 2010

'The mirage is the traveler's book'

...Just as at nightfall
I say to my two friends
If there has to be a dream
Let it be like us and simple.
For example after two days
The three of us will dine
To fete our dream's premonition
That after two days not one of us will have been lost.
So let's celebrate in the moon's sonata
And make a toast to the lenience of death
Who saw the three of us happy together
And decided to look the other way.

I don't say, far way life is real with its imaginary places.
I say, life here is possible.
-- Mahmoud Darwish, by some oversight read by John Berger on BBC Radio 4 this morning.

(The line breaks are erratic as I haven't read the original, which is in any case only a translation...)

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