A Graphic 1995

Poetry
Written By Ghassan Zaqtan

Translated from Arabic by Fady Joudah

The endings are not ours
not anyone’s.

Endings belong to strangers
who weren’t born on wagons,
people we find in the dust of corridors
and who happen in speech

people who are born from shadows
and unraveling mats . . .

And while we were plowing
they were laughing
and filling our pockets with dirt.

 
Ghassan Zaqtan

Ghassan Zaqtan (b.1954) is a prominent Palestinian poet, widely acclaimed across the Arab world. A translated selection of his most recent poetry in the last ten years, Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, is due from Yale University Press in April of 2012. Zaqtan is also a novelist and editor. He lives in Ramallah.

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