“Why do you sing?” “Because I sing.”

O my reader

                                do not ask me to whisper

                                do not expect musical delight

This is my suffering,

                                a wild shot in the sand

                                and another to the clouds.

• Mahmoud Darwish ‘To the Reader’, published in The documenta 14 Reader, reprinted from Khaled Mattawa’s 2014 book Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation.

A dull evening in a rundown village
Eyes half asleep
I recall thirty years
And five wars
I swear the future keeps
My ear of corn
And the singer croons
About a fire and some strangers
And the evening is just another evening
And the singer croons

And they asked him:
Why do you sing?
And he answered:
I sing because I sing…

And they searched his chest
But could only find his heart
And they searched his heart
But could only find his people
And they searched his voice
But could only find his grief
And they searched his grief
But could only find his prison
And they searched his prison
But could only see themselves in chains

• Mahmoud Darwish ‘Earth Song’, translated by Abdullah Al-Udhariin in Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness

In honor of Shabha Radio and everyone still singing amid the ruins of Gaza, including Saja Mater and her family. Click to image below to donate.