Friday, March 12, 2010

Lesser golden back woodpecker

I have written about woodpecker in an earlier blog, woodpeckers have same behavioral traits except that they differ in their color and habitats.

"Enough for me to die on her earth"

Fadwa Touqan (1917-2003) was one of the best known Palestinian poet who expressed a nation's sense of loss and defiance. Though she started with non nationalistic poems (inclined to be more sensual and social) she acquired distinct nationalist fervor after 1967 Israeli occupation. Israel, however, was not her only foe. Arab society and in particular its treatment of women was her constant concern. In her autobiography, translated as Mountainous Journey (1990), she describes how Arab women were hidden in the household like frightened birds in a crowded coop. The war was blessing in disguise “When the roof of Palestine fell,” she wrote “the veil fell off the face of women.”

This poem ‘Enough for me’ quoted below is quite popular, I also like it but the line ‘child from my country’ spoils it for me. I guess Israelis and Palestinians live in a unique situation (its like animals born in captivity and how they differ from free), I feel sad for them, decades of barricaded world has created people who are getting abnormal. Even the best of them can be so narrow; it nevertheless is an excellent poem.

Enough for me to die on her earth
be buried in her
to melt and vanish into her soil
then sprout forth as a flower
played with by a child from my country.
Enough for me to remain
in my country's embrace
to be in her close as a handful of dust
a sprig of grass
a flower.

Political poems work within boundaries, it tends to take the truth from it and fall into jingoism that kills it beauty. However it does inspire people, take pride in their roots and give them cultural context for struggle against injustice. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general, likened reading one of Touqan's poems to facing 20 enemy commandos!.

In turn Touqan was also inspired by the struggle against occupation

When the hurricane swelled and spread its deluge
of dark evil
onto the good green land
They gloated...
“The tree has fallen!”
...
Had the tree really fallen?
Never!
...
not while the red wine of our torn limbs

feed the thirsty roots,
Arab roots alive
tunneling deep, deep, into the land!

It was demanded by some men that she devote herself to political poetry. “How,” she asked, could they ask that when “I am shut up within these walls? I don’t sit with men, I don’t listen to their heated discussions, nor do I participate in the turmoil of life outside. I’m still not even acquainted with the face of my own country as I was not allowed to travel.”.

I liked this poem ‘Freedom’

Freedom

My freedom
I shall carve the words in the
earth
chisel their sounds
over every door in the Levant...
below the slope at every street
corner inside the prison
within the torture chamber.