Two Palestinian Poems by Mu’ine Bessissou

Two Palestinian Poems by Mu’ine Bessissou

The Moon Eighteen Years Later

Here the footprints stop

Here behind rocks, tents and trees

The moon lies with wolves, dogs and stones

And sells her face

For a dagger, a candle and a braid of rain.

Don’t throw stones in their fires.

Don’t steal the glass rings From the gypsies’ fingers.

They are asleep

So are the fish, stones and trees.

Here the footprints stop.

Here the moon moans in labor

Gypsies!

Give her your glass rings And your blue bracelets.

A Lover from Palestine

Your eyes are a thorn in the heart;

It pains me, yet I adore it And shelter it from the wind.

I plunge it into my flesh Hiding it from night and sorrow,

And its wound ignites the lights of stars.

My present makes its future Dearer to me than my soul.

When our eyes meet, I soon forget That once, behind bolted doors,

We were two.

Your words were a song I tried to sing,

But agony encircled the lips of spring