And We Love Life And We Love Life
And we love life if we find a way to it. We dance in between martyrs and raise a minaret for violet or palm trees. We love life if we find a way to it. And we steal from the silkworm a thread to build a sky and fence in this departure. We open the garden gate for the jasmine to step out on the streets as a beautiful day. We love life if we find a way to it. And we plant, where we settle, some fast growing plants, and harvest the dead. We play the flute like the color of the faraway, sketch over the dirt corridor a neigh. We write our names one stone at a time, O lightning brighten the night. We love life if we find a way to it… (translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah) This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Born in a Galilee village later destroyed by the Israeli army, Mahmoud Darwish lived for years in exile in Beirut and Paris before returning to Palestine in 1996. The most widely translated modern Arab poet, Darwish died in 2008.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Mahmoud Darwish
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/22/15? What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/22/15?
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/22/15?
Mar 21, 2015 / Books & the Arts / StudentNation
Why the New Film About the Gang Rape and Murder of Jyoti Singh Is Required Viewing Why the New Film About the Gang Rape and Murder of Jyoti Singh Is Required Viewing
The documentary has been banned in India—which makes watching it only more urgent.
Mar 20, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Nitasha Kaul
Silence and Slow Time Silence and Slow Time
The art of On Kawara.
Mar 20, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Interview With Steve Earle Interview With Steve Earle
"Everybody thought everybody was fooling everybody. And both of us were probably right to a certain extent, everybody was fooling each of us."
Mar 19, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
Cookie Don’t Crumble Cookie Don’t Crumble
Fox’s Empire made TV-ratings history by letting a black woman be her multidimensional self.
Mar 18, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Kristal Brent Zook
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/13/15? What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/13/15?
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/13/15?
Mar 13, 2015 / Books & the Arts / StudentNation
I’ve Got a Little List, Continued I’ve Got a Little List, Continued
The best TV shows, albums and concerts: it's all inside today's Altercation.
Mar 12, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/6/15? What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/6/15?
What Are ‘Nation’ Interns Reading the Week of 3/6/15?
Mar 6, 2015 / Books & the Arts / StudentNation
The Great Chastening The Great Chastening
For Francis Fukuyama and John Dunn, our democratic crisis is the result of an intellectual failure.
Mar 4, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney