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This poem is taken from PN Review 186, Volume 35 Number 4, March - April 2009.

Four Poems (translated by Fady Joudah) Ghassan Zaqtan

Just a Song

Thanks because the river flows
and the villages are fruits on the roads
and the roads are sleepwalking doors
and sleep is the shadow of death
its white land’s first
and the dead are with me
strolling in front of my house
unarmed and peaceful
they posed for photos then left
singly
without an evening
or a calamity…

and thanks to the evening.



Wolves, Also

When it was close and had found its way…

the sound of its breathing
and the scent by the door told of it.
...


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