YOU CAN TIE MY HANDS AND FEET…
…take away my notebook and cigarettes,
fill my mouth with dirt,
poetry is the blood of my living heart,
the salt of my bread,
the light of my eyes,
it will be written with my fingernails,
with my gaze
and with iron.
I will sing it in my prison cell,
in the stable,
under the lash,
among the shackles,
in the agony of chains.
I have millions of nightingales within me
to sing my song of struggle.
Mahmoud Darwish