INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

In memoriam

.

Mahmoud Darwish

(13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008)

محمود درويش... في حضرة الغياب

رحل عنا محمود درويش يوم السبت 9 آب 2008

*

فلسطينية إلى أخ

.
First, it was written on stone
and then on sand

as the wind blew new signs
we learned to read the sand

but not the wind

So sand we could read
but could not sum: that sand plus wind could make the stone ( perhaps... )

Over this bitter bread I shattered my dreams

Somehow in my heart I miss the "Us"
that We...
could have became...
If We would have not ended up
so badly condemned to each other

if only
that would have ever been possible...
.
Alex Olivera
To my Palestinian brothers