Showing posts with label NAJWAN DARWISH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAJWAN DARWISH. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Najwan Darwish: Who Remembers the Armenians?

I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them

You, murderer -
Who remembers you?


― Najwan Darwish, Nothing More to Lose

Monday, May 03, 2021

Najwan Darwish: IDENTITY CARD

بطاقة هُويّة

رغم أَنّ الكردي مشهورٌ بقساوة الرأس ــــ كما يتندّر الأَصدقاء ـــــ إلا أَنني كنتُ أَرقَّ من نَسْمة الصيف وأَنا أَحتضنُ إِخوتي في أَربع جهات الأَرض.


وكنتُ الأَرمني الذي لم يصدِّق الدموع تحت أَجفان ثلجِ التاريخ


وهي تغطّي المقتولين والقَتَلَة


أَكثيرٌ بعد ما حَصَل أَن أُسْقِط مخطوطةَ شعري في الوحل؟


وفي جميع الأَحوال كنتُ سورياً من بيت لحم أَرفع مخطوطةَ أَخي الأَرمني وتركياً من قونيّة يدخلُ الآن من باب دمشق.


وقبل قليلٍ وصلتُ "بيادر وادي السِّير" واستقبلني النّسيم الذي وحده يعرف معنى أَن يأتي المرء من جبال القفقاس مصحوباً بكرامته وعِظام أَهله. وحين وطئ قلبي ترابَ الجزائر لأَوّل مرَّة لم أَشكَّ للحظةٍ أَنّي لستُ أَمازيغيّاً.


في كلِّ مكانٍ ذهبتُ إليه ظنّوني عراقياً وكان ظنّهم في مكانه. وطالما حسبتُ نفسي مصرياً عاش ومات مراراً بجانب النيل مع أَسلافه الأَفارقة.


وقبل كل شيء كنتُ آرامياً. ولا غرو أَن أَخوالي على الأقل مِنْ بيزنطة وأَنني كنت الصبي الحجازي الذي نال حلوى الدلال من صفرونيوس وعُمَر في فَتْحِ بيت المقدس.


ليس من مكانٍ قاومَ غزاته إِلا وكنتُ من أَهله، وما مِنْ إِنسان حُرّ لا تجمعني به قرابة، وما مِنْ شجرة أَو غيمة ليس لها أَفضالٌ عليّ. كما أَن ازدرائي للصهاينة لن يمنعني من القول إِنني كنتُ يهودياً طُرِدَ من الأَندلس وإِنني ما زلتُ أَنسج المعنى مِنْ ضوء ذلك الغروب.


في بيتي نافذة مفتوحة على اليونان وأَيقونة تشير إلى روسيا


ورائحة طيبٍ أَبديّ تهبّ من الحِجاز

ومرآةٌ ما إِن أَقف أَمامها إلا وأَراني أَتَدَبَّرُ الربيعَ في حدائق شيراز وأَصفهان وبُخارى.


وبأَقلَّ مِنْ هذا لا يكون المرء عربياً.


 

 IDENTITY CARD

Despite—as my friends joke—the Kurds being famous for their severity, I was gentler than a summer breeze as I embraced my brothers in the four corners of the world.

And I was the Armenian who did not believe the tears beneath the eyelids of history’s snow

that covers both the murdered and the murderers.


Is it so much, after all that has happened, to drop my poetry in the mud?


In every case I was a Syrian from Bethlehem raising the words of my Armenian brother, and a Turk from Konya entering the gate of Damascus.

And a little while ago I arrived in Bayadir Wadi al-Sir and was welcomed by the breeze, the breeze that alone knew the meaning of a man coming from the Caucasus Mountains, his only companions his dignity and the bones of his ancestors.

And when my heart first tread on Algerian soil, I did not doubt for a moment that I was an Amazigh.


Everywhere I went they thought I was an Iraqi, and they were not wrong in this.

And often I considered myself an Egyptian living and dying time and again by the Nile with my African forebears.

But above anything I was an Aramaean. It is no wonder that my uncles were Byzantines, and that I was a Hijazi child coddled by Umar and Sophronius when Jerusalem was opened.


There is no place that resisted its invaders except that I was of one its people; there is no free man to whom I am not bound in kinship, and there is no single tree or cloud to which I am not indebted. And my scorn for Zionists will not prevent me from saying that I was a Jew expelled from Andalusia, and that I still weave meaning from the light of that setting sun.


In my house there is a window that opens onto Greece, an icon that points to Russia, a sweet scent forever drifting from Hijaz,

and a mirror: No sooner do I stand before it than I see myself immersed in springtime in the gardens of Shiraz, and Isfahan, and Bukhara.


And by anything less than this, one is not an Arab.

© 2012, Najwan Darwish

© Translation: 2012, Kareem James Abu-Zeid

First published on Poetry International, 2012

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

NAJWAN DARWISH: A Moment of Silence

And what did the Armenians say?

An Umayyad monk
spins wheat and wool above us

Time is a scarecrow


That’s what the Armenians said



This poem was translated by KAREEM JAMES ABU-ZEID and was published in the April 2014 issue of Poetry