14/09/2026
The Second Olive Tree - Mahmoud Darwish
The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh.
The olive tree Is the hillside’s modest lady.
Shadow covers her single leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.
Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.
She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of time
That helps her stock her luminous oil and forgets the invaders’ names,
Except the Romans, who coexisted with her,
And borrowed some of her branches to weave wreaths.
They did not treat her as a prisoner of war
But as a venerable grandmother,
Before whose calm dignity swords shatter.
In her reticent silver-green color hesitates to say what she thinks, and to look at what is behind.
The portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.
The olive tree is the color of peace,
If peace needed a color.
No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!
But how noble and how splendid!
And she, she who teaches soldiers to lay down their rifles
And re-educates them in tenderness and humility:
Go home and light your lamps with my oil!
But these soldiers, these modern soldiers
Besiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineage of earth.
They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,
Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.
She did not weep or cry out.
But one of her grandsons who witnessed the ex*****on
Threw a stone at a soldier,
And he was martyred with her.
After the victorious soldiers had gone on their way,
We buried him there, in that deep pit – the grandmother’s cradle.
And that is why we were sure that he would become,
In a little while, an olive tree
A thorny olive tree and green!
