"I See a Circle of Light"

Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan's poems sing of losing the war and living for love

- Ghassan Zaqtan

When that happens When they are liberated from the book, from the riddle of the miracle, and start to roam like open suitcases down the lanes of nearby villages with faces uncovered and smiles that are hard to believe,

When their feet touch earth and they pick up stones, only because these remember their distant childhoods and their cracked fingers furrowed by the curse,

When he hears his dog’s monotonous barking coming as though from wells abandoned in the hidden foothills of memories, his dog who has limped wounded along the riverbank since the soldiers killed it there thirty years ago.

When the new houses on the mountain disappear into the twilight with the construction sites and cranes, haphazard cabins of the workmen and guards, and a single light remains whose source he cannot see, like a secret spring pulling off its mask to breathe,