Mahmoud Darwish: She/He
She: Have you ever known love?
He: When winter comes,
I will be touched
by a passion for
something absent.
I will give it a name,
any name,
and will forget ...
She: What will you forget? Tell me!
He: The fevered shiver, my raving
beneath the sheets as I sigh, Cover me,
cover mel
She: What you are talking about
is not love.
He: What I am talking about
is not love.
She: Have you ever felt the desire
to pass through death
in a woman's arms?
He: The more complete the absence
the more I am present. Distance is shattered,
and death embraces life, and life
embraces death ... like lovers.
She: Then what?
He: Then what?
She: You were united with her
and you did not know her hands
from yours.
You both evaporated
like a blue cloud
without showing you were
two bodies, two reflections, or ... ?
He: Who is the female?-A metaphor of earth in us?
Who is the male?-The sky?
She: That is how love songs begin.
So you once knew love!
He: The more perfect the presence
and the more the unknown
is tamed, the more I am absent.
She: It is winter.
Perhaps I have become the past
you prefer in winter.
He: Perhaps ... au revoir.
She: Perhaps ... au revoir!
🔸 Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Mohammad Shaheen
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