<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">The Cypress Broke</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> <span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> The cypress is the tree’s grief and not</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> the tree, and it has no shadow because it is</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> the tree’s shadow</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> - Bassam Hajjar</i></span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The cypress broke like a minaret, and slept on</div><div class="">the road upon its chapped shadow, dark, green,</div><div class="">as it has always been. No one got hurt. The vehicles</div><div class="">sped over its branches. The dust blew</div><div class="">into the windshields ... / The cypress broke, but</div><div class="">the pigeon in a neighboring house didn’t change</div><div class="">its public nest. And two migrant birds hovered above</div><div class="">the hem of the place, and exchanged some symbols.</div><div class="">And a woman said to her neighbor: Say, did you see a storm?</div><div class="">She said: No, and no bulldozer either ... / And the cypress</div><div class="">broke. And those passing by the wreckage said:</div><div class="">Maybe it got bored with being neglected, or it grew old</div><div class="">with the days, it is long like a giraffe, and little</div><div class="">in meaning like a dust broom, and couldn’t shade two lovers.</div><div class="">And a boy said: I used to draw it perfectly,</div><div class="">its figure was easy to draw. And a girl said: The sky today</div><div class="">is incomplete because the cypress broke.</div><div class="">And a young man said: But the sky today is complete</div><div class="">because the cypress broke. And I said</div><div class="">to myself: Neither mystery nor clarity,</div><div class="">the cypress broke, and that is all</div><div class="">there is to it: the cypress broke!</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Mahmoud Darwish</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(Translation by Fady Joudah)</div></div></body></html>