Stage Of Life
Jamil Daraghmeh

As if I have died before, I know this revelation, I know that I am moving to a place I don’t know, I know what I want
I shall become what I want one day, an idea where neither a sword shall carry to the waste land nor a book
Like rain pouring on a mountain splintered from a blossom of wort
I shall become what I want one day
I am the dreamer’s dialogue, I left my body and my self to continue my initial expedition towards meaning, it burnt me and then disappeared, I am the absence, and I am the fugitive celestial.
I shall become what I want one day

Excerpts from “The Mural” by Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Hadeel Karkar

Here I learned to measure space with the criterion of the soul
Here I learned
That I am all that I was and shall become
I saw the angle of a corridor light
Before circles closed
A hand pulled me, another pushed me

Normally there is life and death, some say there is an interval and they call it life after death, here there is another life with a particular time and place, a life that resembles life in that it has a beginning and an end, and different from it because of the many times it repeats itself, life here doesn’t create instead there is something that creates it, it is merely wood that contains bodies that are in search for warmth, and souls possessing powerful energies.