Mahmoud Darwish. Writter. "Silence for Gaza" ENG ESP

Picture by Ayad Alkadhi, (اياد القاضي), (born 1971), a New York based, Iraqi born artist.
ENGLISH
"Silence for Gaza" - By Mahmoud Darwish (penned in 1973)
She explodes…
It is neither death… nor suicide…
Its Gaza's style to announce her worthiness of life…
For four years and Gaza's flesh burst around… bomb's shrapnel…
Neither magic nor miracle…
It is Gaza's weapons and arms for her continued existence…
And the enemy's detritions it is…
For four years the enemy with its dreams rejoicing it had been…
For flirting with time it was fascinated…
Except for in Gaza…
For Gaza far away it is from her relatives…
And with the enemy it is stuck…
For Gaza is a bomb…
When ever it explodes…
Never she stops from exploding…
The enemy's face she scared…
And from satisfaction with time she repelled them…
Another thing is time in Gaza…
For time in Gaza not a neutral factor it is…
The people it doesn't drive to cold contemplation…
But to the freedom of explosion…
And to collusion with truth…Time there children it doesn't take
from babyhood to old age…
But men it makes of them…
With their first confrontation with the enemy…
In Gaza time is not relaxation …
But storming into the blazing noon…
Values in Gaza differ…
differ
and differ…
Occupied men's only value…
Is the extent of their resistance against the enemy…
This is the only competition that is there…
The honourable and hard truth Gaza is addicted to…
Not from books, nor from quick intensive courses…
She learns…
Time there doesn't take children …
From babyhood to old age…
But men it makes of them
with their first confrontation with the enemy…
In Gaza time is not relaxation …
But storming into the blazing noon…
Values in Gaza differ… differ and differ…
Not from books, nor from quick intensive courses…
Nor from propaganda's loud speakers and anthems…
By experience only and work and labor it learned it…
Not for advertising and the image…Pride with its weapons,
Revolutionary attitude…
And budget…
Its bitter flesh it presents…
Willingly it spills its blood…
…Oration Gaza doesn't master
…No throat she has
…Its skin's spores speaks
…sweating
…Blood
…And blaze
…Enemy's hate up to killing starts from here
…Fears her up to murder
…And into the sea they wish to drawn her
…Or in the desert
…Or in blood
…Its beloved and relatives from here
…Their love starts
…With bashfulness
…Up to jealousy and fear sometimes
…For Gaza is the savage lesson
…And the shining symbol… for friends and enemies
…Both alike
…Gaza not the most beautiful of cities it is
...Its shore not bluer than these of other Arab cities they are
…And its oranges are not the most beautiful on the Mediterranean
…And Gaza is not the richest of cities
…And it is not the most progressive among cities...But it is equal to a nation's history
…Because it is the ugliest in the enemy's eyes
…Poorer, more miserable and most ferocious
…Because it is the savage lesson for the enemy
…Because it is the most able to disturb the enemy
…Because it is there nightmare
…Because booby trapped are its oranges
…Babies without babyhood and ageless aged men
…Women without desire
…And because this is what it is
…It is the most beautiful
…Clearest
…Richest
…And most worthy of love
Injustice we do her when we look for her poems…
…Because poetry she doesn't have
.makes her the most beautiful among the beauties
…At a time when we tried to defeat the enemy with poetry
…Rejoiced we became when the enemy left us to sing
…The enemy we allowed to be victorious
…To dry the poetry stuck on our lips
:And the enemy we left to build
Cities, fortresses
! ! ! And streets
…Injustice we do Gaza when
…A legend we make of her
:But hate her when we discover that
,It is nothing but a small,Poor
…And she resists
? When we ask… what made a legend of her
…All our mirrors we shall smash and cry
…If dignity we have
…Or curse her if
! ! ! We refused her to revolt against ourselves
…Injustice we Gaza do if
…We glorify her up to enchantment
…Because enchantment will take us to
…The verge of waiting
…And Gaza doesn't come to us
…Gaza doesn't liberate us
…Gaza no horses it has
…Or airplanes
…Nor a magic stick
…And also offices in capitals
…Gaza liberates Itself from our
…Characteristics
…Language
…And instincts all at the same time
…And when through a - dream - we meet her
? If she does recognizes us
…Because Gaza of fire it was born
…And we for waiting
…And for crying for lost homes we were born
…True special circumstances
…And private nature Gaza has …But Gaza's secret is not a puzzle
Her resistance is popular…
United and knows what it wants…
The enemy from her cloths…
(She wants to expel…)
With the masses Gaza's resistance is…
The skin with flesh and bones…
Not that of the teacher with students…
Resistance in Gaza is not a paid for job…
Nor an establishment Gaza's resistance is…
Any body's guardianship she refuses…
Its fate is not subjected to a thump print
or anybody's signature…
She cares not, at all, to know…
Its name or oratory skill…
She never accepted to be…
An advertising subject…
She never pauses for camera's lenses…
And doesn't her face smear with smile's paste…
She and we do not want…
Starting with this…
Gaza for brokers is a losing trade…
And starting with that Gaza…
Is the Arab's priceless goldmine…
…Gaza's beauty is that our voices she doesn't hear
…Nothing bothers her
…Nothing turns away her fist
…From the enemy's face…No disagreement on the form of Palestine's government
! ! ! That we shall establish on the moon's eastern cheek
…Or the western cheek of Mars when discovered it is
…It is busy with rejection
…Hunger with rejection
…Thirst with rejection
…Diaspora (Ashatat) with rejection
…Torture with rejection
…Siege with rejection
…Death with rejection
! ! ! And rejection with rejection
…In Gaza the enemy could be victorious
and the sea's high waves could be victorious)
(…on an island that all its trees they uprooted or cut down
…Her bones they could break
Tanks they could plant in its children's chests
…and women's bellies
…And into the sea
…Sand and blood… But
But never lies she repeats or
…say yes to invaders
…Exploding she shall continue
…It is neither death nor suicide
It is Gaza's style in declaring her worthiness of life…
Coma…
And exploding she shall continue
It is Gaza's style in declaring her worthiness of life…
Translated by: Adib S. Kawar
Gaza is far from its relatives and close to its enemies, because whenever Gaza explodes, it becomes an island and it never stops exploding. It scratched the enemy’s face, broke his dreams and stopped his satisfaction with time.
Because in Gaza time is something different.
Because in Gaza time is not a neutral element.
It does not compel people to cool contemplation, but rather to explosion and a collision with reality.
Time there does not take children from childhood to old age, but rather makes them men in their first confrontation with the enemy.
Time in Gaza is not relaxation, but storming the burning noon. Because in Gaza values are different, different, different.
The only value for the occupied is the extent of his resistance to occupation. That is the only competition there. Gaza has been addicted to knowing this cruel, noble value. It did not learn it from books, hasty school seminars, loud propaganda megaphones, or songs. It learned it through experience alone and through work that is not done for advertisement and image.
Gaza has no throat. Its pores are the ones that speak in sweat, blood, and fires. Hence the enemy hates it to death and fears it to criminality, and tries to sink it into the sea, the desert, or blood. And hence its relatives and friends love it with a coyness that amounts to jealousy and fear at times, because Gaza is the brutal lesson and the shining example for enemies and friends alike.
Gaza is not the most beautiful city.
Its shore is not bluer than the shores of Arab cities.
Its oranges are not the most beautiful in the Mediterranean basin.
Gaza is not the richest city.
It is not the most elegant or the biggest, but it equals the history of an entire homeland, because it is more ugly, impoverished, miserable, and vicious in the eyes of enemies. Because it is the most capable, among us, of disturbing the enemy’s mood and his comfort. Because it is his nightmare. Because it is mined oranges, children without a childhood, old men without old age and women without desires. Because of all this it is the most beautiful, the purest and richest among us and the one most worthy of love.
We do injustice to Gaza when we look for its poems, so let us not disfigure Gaza’s beauty. What is most beautiful in it is that it is devoid of poetry at a time when we tried to triumph over the enemy with poems, so we believed ourselves and were overjoyed to see the enemy letting us sing. We let him triumph, then when we dried our lips of poems we saw that the enemy had finished building cities, forts and streets. We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into a myth, because we will hate it when we discover that it is no more than a small poor city that resists.
We do injustice when we wonder: What made it into a myth? If we had dignity, we would break all our mirrors and cry or curse it if we refuse to revolt against ourselves. We do injustice to Gaza if we glorify it, because being enchanted by it will take us to the edge of waiting and Gaza doesn’t come to us. Gaza does not liberate us. Gaza has no horses, airplanes, magic wands, or offices in capital cities. Gaza liberates itself from our attributes and liberates our language from its Gaza's at the same time. When we meet it - in a dream - perhaps it won’t recognize us, because Gaza was born out of fire, while we were born out of waiting and crying over abandoned homes.
It is true that Gaza has its special circumstances and its own revolutionary traditions. But its secret is not a mystery: Its resistance is popular and firmly joined together and knows what it wants (it wants to expel the enemy out of its clothes). The relationship of resistance to the people is that of skin to bones and not a teacher to students. Resistance in Gaza did not turn into a profession or an institution.
It did not accept anyone’s tutelage and did not leave its fate hinging on anyone’s signature or stamp.
It does not care that much if we know its name, picture, or eloquence. It did not believe that it was material for media. It did not prepare for cameras and did not put smiling paste on its face.
Neither does it want that, nor we.
Hence, Gaza is bad business for merchants and hence it is an incomparable moral treasure for Arabs.
What is beautiful about Gaza is that our voices do not reach it. Nothing distracts it; nothing takes its fist away from the enemy’s face. Not the forms of the Palestinian state we will establish whether on the eastern side of the moon, or the western side of Mars when it is explored. Gaza is devoted to rejection. . . hunger and rejection, thirst and rejection, displacement and rejection, torture and rejection, siege and rejection, death and rejection.
Enemies might triumph over Gaza (the storming sea might triumph over an island. . . they might chop down all its trees).
They might break its bones.
They might implant tanks on the insides of its children and women. They might throw it into the sea, sand, or blood.
But it will not repeat lies and say “Yes” to invaders.
It will continue to explode.
It is neither death, nor suicide. It is Gaza’s way of declaring that it deserves to live.
It will continue to explode.
It is neither death, nor suicide. It is Gaza’s way of declaring that it deserves to live.
ESPAÑOL

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