> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.merip.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mural - URL: https://www.merip.org/2008/09/mural/ - Published: 2008-09-26T16:08:12.000Z - Updated: 2025-07-29T12:56:10.000Z - Description: I will walk in my footsteps down the old path through the sea air no woman will see me passing under her balcony I have of memories only those necessary for the long journey Days contain all they need of tomorrows I was smaller than my eyelashes and my two dimples So take my sleepiness and hide me i - Author: Mahmoud Darwish - Tags: MER Article, Palestine, #wp, #wp-post, Issue 248, #In Memoriam I will walk in my footsteps down the old path through the sea air no woman will see me passing under her balcony I have of memories only those necessary for the long journey Days contain all they need of tomorrows I was smaller than my eyelashes and my two dimples So take my sleepiness and hide me in the story of the tender evening Hide me under one of the two date palms and teach me poetry So I can learn how to walk beside Homer So I can add to the story a description of Akka the oldest of the beautiful cities the most beautiful of the old cities A box of stone where the living and dead move in the dry clay like bees captive in a honeycomb of a hive and each time the siege tightens they go on a flower hunger strike and ask the sea to indicate the emergency exit Teach me poetry in case a girl needs a song for her distant beloved: Take me to you even by force and prepare my bed in your hands And they walked interlaced towards the echo as though I had married a runaway fawn to a gazelle and opened the church door for the pigeons Teach me poetry She who spun the wool shirt and waits by the door is first to speak of the horizon and despair: The fighter hasn’t returned and won’t return and you are not the you I was waiting for I saw myself like Christ on the lake…. But I came down from the cross because of my fear of heights and I don’t preach the apocalypse all that I changed was my pace the better to hear the voice of my heart… Eagles are for bards for me the dove’s collar a star abandoned on the roof and a winding alley leading to the port This sea is mine This sea air is mine This quayside with my footsteps and sperm upon it…is mine And the old bus station is mine And my ghost and its master are mine And the copper utensils and the verse of the throne and the key are mine And the door and the guards and bells are mine The horseshoe flung over the ramparts is mine All that was mine is mine Paper scraps torn from the gospels are mine Salt from the tears on the wall of the house are mine… And my name mispronounced with its five horizontal letters my name… is mine: mim/ of lovesickness, of the orphan, of those who complete the past ha/ of the garden and love, of two muddles and two losses mim/ of the rake, of the lovesick, of the exile prepared for a death foretold waw/ of farewells, of the central flower, of fidelity to birth wherever it may be and of a parent’s promise dal/ of the guide, of the path of tears, of a studied galaxy and a sparrow who cajoles me and makes me bleed This name is mine… and also my friends’ wherever they may be And my temporary body is mine present or absent… Two metres of this earth will be enough for now a meter and 75 centimeters for me and the rest for flowers in a riot of color who will slowly drink me And what was mine is mine: my yesterday and what will be in the distant tomorrow in the return of the fugitive soul as if nothing has been and as if nothing has been A light wound on the arm of the absurd present History taunting its victims and its heroes… throwing them a glance and passing on This sea is mine This sea air is mine And my name—if I mispronounce it on my coffin—is mine And as for me—full of all reasons for leaving— I am not mine I am not mine I am not mine —Translated by Rema Hammami and John Berger