And I say to myself : A moon will rise from my darkness

She says: when are we gonna meet?

I say: after a year and a war

She says: when does the war end?

I say: the time we meet

These brilliant lines are from the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008). Born in a village in Israel, Darwish and his family were considered 'internal refugees' in their own homeland. He spent most of his later life in Beirut and Paris. Majority of  Darwish's work reflects his unhappiness about being considered 'an outsider' in his own land. His poetry is rich in imagery, lyrical and passionate. Displacement, denial of identity and the yearning to go back to his own home forms the soul of his writing.

His poetry outpours his immense inexplicable pain and longing for his home and for the end of war. His poem I Belong There from the book "Unfortunately, It Was Paradise " is a beautiful composition for his homeland :

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.

I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, and a prison cell

with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.

I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon,

a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.

I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.

I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to

   her mother.

And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.

To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.

I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a

   single word: Home.

Another poet with family roots in Palestine, Naomi Shihab Nye describes Darwish as 'The Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the world’s whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around the world—his in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered.'

In another poem To a Young Poet, Darwish's imagery is magical as can be seen in the appended excerpts :

If you want to duel with a falcon

soar with the falcon.

If you fall in love with a woman, 

be the one, not she,

who desires his end.

................

................

The road is long like an ancient poet’s night: 

plains and hills, rivers and valleys.

Walk according to your dream’s measure: either a lily

follows you or the gallows.

................

................

Don’t think, when you melt in sorrow 

like candle tears, of who will see you 

or follow your intuition’s light.

Think of yourself: is this all of myself?

The poem is always incomplete, the butterflies make it whole.

His love for humanity and peace is timeless and in his short lifetime of 66 years, every stanza he wrote and every poem he composed, exudes his eternal optimism and hope for a better world and a home for all, which he longed passionately each day of his life.

And I say to myself : A moon will rise from my darkness

(P.S. Darwish's select work is translated and edited by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forche with Sinan Antoon and Amira El-Zein in a book published in 2003 named Unfortunately, It was Paradise)