Identity Card - Mahmood Darwish

[Larry Robinson]

Identity Card 
 
Put it on record.
       I am an Arab
And the number of my card is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth is due after summer.
What's there to be angry about?
 
Put it on record.
        I am an Arab
Working with comrades of toil in a stone quarry.
I have eight children
For them I wrestle the loaf of bread,
The clothes and exercise books
From the dry rocks
And beg for no alms at your door,
Nor lower myself at your doorstep.
       What's there to be angry about?
 
Put it on record.
       I am an Arab
I am a name without a title,
Patient in a country where everything
Lives in a whirlpool of anger.
       My roots
       Took hold before the birth of time
       Before the burgeoning of the ages,
       Before cypress and olive trees,
       Before the proliferation of weeds.
 
 
My father is from the family of the plough
       Not from highborn nobles.
And my grandfather was a peasant
       Without line or genealogy.
My house is a watchman's hut
       Made of sticks and reeds.
Does my status satisfy you?
       I am a name without a surname.
 
Put it on record.
       I am an Arab.
Color of hair: jet black.
Color of eyes; brown.
My distinguishing features:
       On my head the 'iqal cords over a keffiyeh
       Scratching him who touches it.
My address:
I’m from a village, remote, forgotten,
       Its streets without names
       And all its men in the fields and quarry.
 
What's there to be angry about?
 
Put it on record.
       I am an Arab.
You stole my forefather's vineyards
       And land I used to till,
       I and all my children,
       And you left us and all my grandchildren
       Nothing but these rocks.
       Will your government be taking them too?
       As is being said?
 
SO!
       Put it on record at the top of page one:
       I don't hate people,
       I trespass on no one's property.
 
And yet, if I were to become hungry enough
       I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
       Beware.
       Beware of my hunger.
       And of my anger!

	- Mahmood Darwish
        
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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