If I were another

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—

that’s what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another!

Mahmoud Darwish

translated By Fady Joudah

(Picture: A wet road by moonlight wharfedale, John Atkinson Grimshaw)