| A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies by Mahmoud Darwish Considered by Many to be the Palestinian Poet Laureate |
He dreams of white lilies a branch of an olive tree her breast budding in water/ he told me he dreams of a bird of lemon blossom & doesn’t ask why or wherefore understanding only the things he can smell the things beneath his hands understanding as he told me that home is drinking his mother’s coffee & coming back safely at evening. I asked him: & the land? He said: I don’t know it & I don’t feel it as skin & heartbeat as you poets say but it caught my eye quite suddenly like a street a shop a headline. I asked him: Do you love it? He answered: My love is a leisurely stroll Or a glass of wine or an affair. --Would you die for it? --Let me tell you what keeps me in this place: the speeches stirred me up they taught me to love the idea of love but I didn’t share the land’s heart. The smell of grass/ putting down roots/ branches... that part’s a dream it’s not real. --& this love does it cut deep as sun or desire? He looked me in the eye: I make love with a gun he said & the echo of my love is the sound of festivals in ancient ruins & the silence of an old old statue/ old beyond time & place & maker. & then he told me that when he left for a place at the front his mother wept her grief etching a new dream in his flesh: that the Ministry of Defence might harbour doves in its gates... that doves might grow there, He lit a cigarette & said as though mincing between pools of blood: I was dreaming of white lilies of an olive branch of a bird taking the morning to its heart in the branches of a lemon tree. --But what did you see? --I saw what I did: red lilies blooming in the sand in breasts & in bellies. --& how many did you kill? --Counting is difficult... I got a medal. & to torture myself I asked him: Tell me about one of them. He straightened his spine fiddled with his folded newspaper & then singsong: He sprawled on the stones like a collapsing tent embracing its ridgepole his high forehead wore a crown of blood he had no medals on his chest he was a pisspoor fighter a farmer labouring man peddler something like that like a tent he collapsed onto the stones & died his arms stretched out like two dry streams when I searched his pockets for identification I found two photographs one of his wife one of his small daughter... --Did this grieve you? --Mahmoud my friend grief is a white bird & you don’t find it on battlefields. Soldiers don’t distinguish sin from grief. The only birds around me were wings of black smoke. After this he talked to me about his first girl & about distant streets & reactions to the war & the heroisms of broadcasting & press. & when he’d hidden a cough in his handkerchief I asked him: Can we meet man to man? He answered: In a city far from here. & when I’d filled his glass the fourth time I said joking: So you’re leaving... what about the homeland? He said: Leave me alone... I am dreaming of white lilies of a song-filled street a house that’s well-lit. I want a good heart not the weight of a gun’s magazine. I want a day & its sunlight & no fascist victory exultation in it. I want a smiling child in this day not an issue of the war-machine. I came here because I thought a sun was approaching its zenith not setting. I refuse to die turning my gun my love on women & children to guard the orchards & wells of oil tycoons & tycoons of weapons factories. He said goodbye to me because he was looking for white lilies for a bird taking the morning to its heart among olive branches/ because he understood only the things he could smell the things beneath his hands understanding as he told me that home is sipping his mother’s coffee & coming back safely at evening... Obituary Mahmoud Darwish |