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Voices From the Homeland (Part Two)

© Aida Hasan

remained, gazing back at us
waiting for a fiery volcano, for the flames.

(published in Jayussi, 1992)

Abu Salma is the pseudonym for Abd al-Kareem al-Karmi. He is called "The Olive Tree of Palestine" as a symbol of rootedness and undying dedication and identification with the Palestinian cause in his poetry.

We Shall Return
Abu Salma
(1907-1980)

....We'll return some day while generations listen
to the echoes of our feet.
We'll return with raging storms,
holy lighthing and fire,
winged hope and songs,
soaring eagles,
the dawn smiling on the deserts.
Some morning we'll return riding the crest of the tide,
our bloodied banners fluttering
above the glitter of spears.

(published in Jayussi, 1992)

The following is a sample of a poem from a Palestinian in exile, originally from a town called Haifa which was taken in 1948.

The Seed Keepers
Fawaz Turki
(born 1940)

Burn our land
burn our dream
pour acid onto our songs
cover with sawdust
the blood of our massacred people
muffle with your technology
the screams of imprisoned patriots,
destroy,
destroy
our grass and soil
raze to the ground
every farm and every village
our ancestors had built,
.......I do not fear your tryanny.
I guard one seed
of a tree
my forefathers have saved
that I shall plant again
in my homeland.

(published in Jayussi, 1992)

The final two samples are from two poets whose poetry is so known and loved among Palestinians, that they have really become the poetic voice of the Palestinian people. Tawfiq Zayad and Mahmoud Darwish are, as Jayussi states in her anthology, "household names" in the Arab world. They provided Arab readers with a "potent verbal weapon" against their tragic history. Zayad represents, for Palestinians, the continuing struggle for justice -- a strong, solid, determined spirit defying the injustices, the aggression, the suffering that is the Palestinian collective experience. Many of his words have been put to music.

On The Trunk Of An Olive Tree
Tawfiq Zayad
(born 1932)

I shall carve my story and the chapters of my tragedy,
I shall carve my sighs
On my grove and on the tombs of my dead;
......I shall carve the number of each deed
Of our usurped land
The location of my village and its boundaries.
The demolished houses of its peoples,
My uprooted trees,
.........And to remember it all,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy,
And all the stages of the disaster,
From the beginning