{"id":295108,"date":"2025-05-12T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=295108"},"modified":"2025-05-12T02:57:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T01:57:45","slug":"i-come-from-there-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/05\/i-come-from-there-2\/","title":{"rendered":"I Come From There"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mahmoud Darwish<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

I come from there and I have memories<\/p>\n

Born as mortals are, I have a mother<\/p>\n

\n

And a house with many windows,
\nI have brothers, friends,
\nAnd a prison cell with a cold window.
\nMine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
\nI have my own view,
\nAnd an extra blade of grass.
\nMine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
\nAnd the bounty of birds,
\nAnd the immortal olive tree.
\nI walked this land before the swords
\nTurned its living body into a laden table.
\nI come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
\nWhen the sky weeps for her mother.
\nAnd I weep to make myself known
\nTo a returning cloud.
\nI learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
\nSo that I could break the rule.
\nI learnt all the words and broke them up
\nTo make a single word: Homeland..<\/p>\n

Mahmoud Darwish: The Voice of Exile, Resistance, and Hope<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Born in the village of al-Birwa in Galilee, Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s life was forever marked by displacement. His homeland was occupied and later erased by the Israeli army, leaving his family classified as “present-absent aliens”\u2014a haunting paradox that would shape his poetry. Despite exile, Darwish transformed his longing and defiance into over 30 volumes of verse and eight books of prose, earning global acclaim, including the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, the Lenin Peace Prize, and France\u2019s Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal.<\/p>\n

Darwish was more than a poet\u2014he was a symbol of resistance. In the 1960s, he was imprisoned for reciting his work and traveling without a permit. His iconic poem “Identity Card”<\/em> became a protest anthem, leading to his house arrest. Yet, his voice only grew louder. After studying in Moscow, he worked at Al-Ahram<\/em> in Cairo, then moved to Beirut, where he edited Palestinian Affairs<\/em> and later founded Al-Karmel<\/em>. His leadership extended to politics as a member of the PLO\u2019s executive committee, yet his greatest power remained his pen.<\/p>\n

Exile never severed his connection to Palestine. In 1996, he was finally permitted to return, reuniting with loved ones in a land forever etched in his soul. His early works pulse with the pain of occupation, while later collections, like Mural<\/em>, weave classical Arabic forms with modern brilliance. As Carolyn Forch\u00e9 noted, Darwish was not just the voice of the Palestinian diaspora but of “the fragmented soul”\u2014a poet who turned loss into timeless art.<\/p>\n

Though he passed away in Houston in 2008, Darwish\u2019s words endure\u2014a testament to resilience, a call for justice, and an unyielding ode to homeland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mahmoud Darwish I come from there and I have memories Born as mortals are, I have a mother And a house with many windows, I have brothers, friends, And a prison cell with a cold window. Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls, I have my own view, And an extra blade of grass. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":295112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295108"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295114,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295108\/revisions\/295114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}