Threescore Men and Threescore More

The Horse Fell Off the Poem:

The horse fell off the poem

and the Galilean women were wet

with butterflies and dew,

dancing above chrysanthemum

The two absent ones: you and I

you and I are the two absent ones

A pair of white doves

chatting on the branches of a holm oak

No love, but I love ancient

love poems that guard

the sick moon from smoke

I attack and retreat, like the violin in quatrains

I get far from my time when I am near

the topography of place ...

There is no margin in modern language left

to celebrate what we love,

because all that will be ... was

The horse fell bloodied

with my poem

and I fell bloodied

with the horse’s blood ...

Mahmoud Darwish.