Bamboo-Water shares three poems by Taha Muhammad Ali – a Palestinian poet. I ask you all, as Israel prepares to bomb a hospital in Gaza, to please contemplate them.

''...And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people’s hearts...''

—Taha Muhammad Ali, 1931-2011, In Memoriam, from Poetry (December 2011, v.CXCIX no.3                       m.l.p. hl.          

 Posted on July 23, 2014 by Jean 

 Taha Muhammad Ali – Palestinian PoetTea and Sleep

If, over this world, there’s a ruler
who holds in his hand bestowal and seizure,
at whose command seeds are sown,
as with his will the harvest ripens,
I turn in prayer, asking him
to decree for the hour of my demise,
when my days draw to an end,
that I’ll be sitting and taking a sip
of weak tea with a little sugar
from my favorite glass
in the gentlest shade of the late afternoon
during the summer.
And if not tea and afternoon,
then let it be the hour
of my sweet sleep just after dawn.
And may my compensation be–
if in fact I see compensation–
I who during my time in this world
didn’t split open an ant’s belly,
and never deprived an orphan of money,
didn’t cheat on measures of oil
or violate a swallow’s veil;
who always lit a lamp
at the shrine of our lord, Shihab a-Din,
on Friday evenings,
and never sought to beat my friends
or neighbors at games,
or even those I simply knew;
I who stole neither wheat nor grain
and did not pilfer tools
would ask–
that now, for me, it be ordained
that once a month,
or every other,
I be allowed to see
the one my vision has been denied
since that day I parted
from her when we were young.
But as for the pleasures of the world to come,
all I’ll ask
of them will be–
the bliss of sleep, and tea.
Taha Muhammad Ali
was a Palestinian poet,
born on July 27, 1931,
and died in Nazareth,
Israel, on Sunday,
October 2, 2011.
Taha will be sorely missed.
++++++++++
Revenge – Taha Muhammad Ali – You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mrDLT5Ae-VY
Revenge
At times … I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!
But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.
Likewise … I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.
But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.
—Taha Muhammad Ali,
Nazareth
April 15, 2006
translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin
Video: Ali & Cole, giving Arabic & English readings of “Revenge” at 2006 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
++++++++++
And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people’s hearts.
—Taha Muhammad Ali, 1931-2011, In Memoriam, from Poetry (December 2011, v.CXCIX no.3