For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.
Are we what we do with time, or are we what time does with us?
On the train we swapped seats, you wanted the window and I wanted to look at you.
Out of my ignorance, I called you a homeland and I forgot homelands are taken away.
Do not be absent for too long, then come and ask about how I am, details die with time and stories change.
After you nothing goes and nothing returns.
May life suddenly open on the wing of a butterfly fluttering over a rhyme for those who do not care about meaning.
They asked ‘do you love her to death?’ I said ’speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.
Get rid of my tomorrow. Return my yesterday and leave us alone together. After you nothing leaves and nothing returns.
Thus, lethargic letters, which carry no value when separate, build a house when they come together.
The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price.
Silence has gossiping walls, emptiness slandering emptiness.
Yet you love sleep and salute Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, and forget that he is death’s brother.
From afar, the poems come. I resemble you, yet I do not become you. I become you, yet I do not resemble you.
Letters are restless, hungry for an image, and the image is thirsty for a meaning.
I have passed by many eyes but only got lost in yours.
All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.
I love talking to you, even if I have nothing to say.
If you asked me how many times you came in my mind, I would say once. Because you came, and never left.
You won’t find the same person twice, not even in the same person.
A University degree, four books, and hundreds of articles and I still make mistakes when reading. You wrote me ‘good morning’ and I read it as ‘I love you’.