This poem is a cento.
And it is composed entirely of lines
by Mahmoud Darwish, translated into English.
"A Single Word--
Home."
Denuded of my name, of belonging,
childhood memories grow up in me, one day following another.
In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon.
And it is as tiny as a sesame seed.
I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.
If I return one day, take me for a kindling in your fire.
I am aged.
A fog veils me.
Facing the dusk and the canon of time, the fields of wheat,
the white graves.
Free, I stand beside my freedom.
I am known to all the songs of rain, all the prisons, all
the borders.
I must be worthy of my mother's tears.
For my name I shall choose letters of Azure, the birds that
chased after my palms.
What will we do before this death?
We are dust's bygone neighbors.
You, who stand in the doorway, come in.