Darwish has many poems that are considered very strong, but I have always thought the poem he wrote to his mother is one of the strongest poems ever written for a mother. In this poem, Mother is used as a metaphor for his homeland, for Palestine.
\nHe starts the poem with a very iconic subject in Middle Eastern culture: Bread<\/i>.….<\/b><\/p>\n
Review by: mahnaz badihian<\/i><\/p>\n
poem” mother” by Mahmoud Darwish
\nMy Mother <\/i>
\n
\nI long for my mother’s bread.
\nMy mother’s coffee
\nHer touch
\nChildhood memories grow up in me
\nDay after day
\nI must be worth my life
\nAt the hour of my death
\nWorth the tears of my mother.
\nAnd if I come back one day
\nTake me as a veil to your eyelashes
\nCover my bones with the grass
\nBlessed by your footsteps
\nBind us together
\nWith a lock of your hair
\nWith a thread that trails from the back of your dress
\nI might become immortal
\nBecome a God
\nIf I touch the depths of your heart.
\nIf I come back
\nUse me as wood to feed your fire
\nAs the clothesline on the roof of your house
\nWithout your blessing
\nI am too weak to stand.
\nI am old
\nGive me back the star maps of childhood
\nSo that I
\nAlong with the swallows
\nCan chart the path
\nBack to your waiting nest.
\n\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n
The national poet of Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish, passed away in 2008 in Houston, TX, from complications related to heart surgery. Like many other Palestinians, Darwish had personal experience with house arrest, hardship, and exile. He won many literary awards and was celebrated worldwide; he was a voice for the Arab world. An essential metaphor, as well as a recurring theme, in his poems was Palestine. He uses this metaphor to portray his feelings towards Eden, exile, and the anguish of being deprived of his homeland.
\nI have read Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry and translated several of his poems from English to Persian. His lyrics are deeply emotional and touching in terms of journeying to the familiar and ordinary person’s deep desires and sorrows, especially the people of his beloved homeland.
\nDarwish has many poems that are considered very strong, but I have always thought the poem he wrote to his mother is one of the strongest poems ever written for a mother. In this poem, Mother is used as a metaphor for his homeland, for Palestine.
\nHe starts the poem with a very iconic subject in Middle Eastern culture: Bread.
\nI long for my mother’s bread.
\nBread is a metaphor for human survival. Bread, in this instance, is used as a metaphor for balance, peace, and finally, as a metaphor for love. In many cultures of the world, bread is considered holy and respected in ritual, especially in impoverished countries. He also used bread as a metaphor for the kindness and love of mothers, as usually, mothers prepare both the food and the dinner table. He uses longing for bread and coffee and his mother’s touch only to reiterate how much he misses his mother and country.
\nThe poet’s expressions of love and respect for his mother reach their height when he writes:<\/p>\n
I must be worth my life
\nAt the hour of my death
\nWorth the tears of my mother.<\/i><\/p>\n
These three lines made global headline news in his obituary on BBC. The prescient point in the third line is astounding in that Darwish died while his mother was still alive. Darwish wanted to be worthy of his mother’s tears when he died. Or again, he wants to be worthy of his people, his countrymen.
\nIn several lines in the body of the poem, his commanding use of simile is impressive:<\/p>\n
Take me as a veil
\n\u2026
\nUse me as wood to feed your fire
\nas the clothesline on the roof of your house
\nHis use of the veil represents closeness to his mother’s eyelashes. This is the poet’s desire to be close to his mother and use her. He states this desire to be helpful to his mother in more specific terms by saying, ‘use me as a wood for your fire.’ This is the fire that will warm his mother and subsequently bake bread.
\nAt the end of this poem, he tells his mother that without her, he is old and weak:<\/p>\n
Without your blessing
\nI am too weak to stand.
\nI am old
\nHe then ends the poem with a request from his mother:
\nCould you give me back the star maps of childhood?
\nHe needs the map so that he can go back to his childhood,
\nto his mother’s nest, to his country.
\nSo that I
\nAlong with the swallows
\nCan chart the path
\nBack to your waiting nest.
\n<\/i>
\nThe overpowering strength of his emotion in this poem, and the way he walks the reader step by step through his longing with the use of vocabularies such as bread, fire, coffee, swallows, wood, hair, heart, immortal, and touch make this poem very emotional and accessible to every reader that has known the love of a mother and motherland and thus is eternal.<\/p>\n
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Darwish has many poems that are considered very strong, but I have always thought the poem he wrote to his mother is one of the strongest poems ever written for a mother. In this poem, Mother is used as a metaphor for his homeland, for Palestine. He starts the poem with a very iconic subject […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}