When the hurricane swirled and spread its deluge
of dark evil
onto the good green land
‘they’ gloated. The western skies
reverberated with joyous accounts:
“The Tree has fallen!
The great trunk is smashed! The hurricane leaves no life in the Tree!”
Had the Tree really fallen?
Never! Not with our red streams flowing forever,
not while the wine of our thorn limbs
fed the thirsty roots,
Arab roots alive
tunneling deep, deep, into the land!
When the Tree rises up, the branches
shall flourish green and fresh in the sun,
the laughter of the Tree shall leaf
beneath the sun
and birds shall return.
Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.
The birds shall return.
Fadwa Touqan (1917-2003) is one of the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature. She published eight collections of poems: My Brother Ibrahim (1946), Alone with the Days (1952), I Found It (1958), Danos Love (1960), Before the Closed Door (1967), The Night and the Riders (1969), Alone on the Summit of the World (1973), July and the Other Anthem (1989), and The Last Toronda (2000). She also wrote two books, Mountainous Journey: A Poet’s Autobiography (1990) and The More Difficult Journey (1993). She was the recipient of the International Poetry Prize in Palermo, Italy, as well as awards in Greece and Jordan, the Jerusalem Award for Culture and Arts from the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1990, the United Arab Emirates Award, and the Honorary Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1996. She died in December 2003 at the height of the second Palestinian intifada when her ancestral hometown of Nablus was under siege.
