Salman Masalha

HER MAJESTY

Neither dust, nor a rock, nor a site
Shall I praise from the desert’s edge
Nor the reign of thieves that mines
Only nightmares under siege.

There’s no joy in my grieving heart
For a past, for now, for what is to be,
For the land or its tenants, apart
From just one: Her Majesty.

A tongue that lived for two thousand years,
And under blockade kissed my own.
They turned into twins, like lips
That can blend two hopes into one.


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Translated from Hebrew by Vivian Eden

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Haaretz


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