A Palestinian Poet writes about exile

We travel like other people, but we return to nowhere. As if traveling
Is the way of the clouds. We have buried our loved ones in the
                Darkness of the clouds, between the roots of the trees.
And we said to our wives: go on giving birth to people like us               
                For hundreds of years so we can complete this journey
To the hour of a country, to a meter of the impossible.
We travel in the carriages of the psalms, sleep in the tents of the
                Prophets and come out of the speech of the gypsies.
We measure space with a hoopoe’s beak or sing to while away the               
                Distance and cleanse the light of the moon.
Your path is long so dream of seven women to bear this long path
On your shoulders. Shake for them palm trees so as to know their
                Names and who’ll be the mother of the boy of Galilee.
We have a country of words. Speak speak so we may know the end of               
                This travel.
                                              — Mahmoud Darwish, “We Travel Like Other People” (1984)¹