Notwithstanding his close association with Palestinian history and experience, Darwish, like all great poets, does not belong to his people alone; the beauty of his art is universal. In his later years his writing expanded and engaged a variety of historical experiences, drawing from Greek mythology, Native American and Near Eastern history, and Qur’anic and Biblical references. But echoes of the Palestinian experience would remain. In his poem “The Speech of the Red Indian,” he wrote: “O you who are guests in this place, leave a few chairs empty/ for your hosts to read out / the conditions for peace / in a treaty with the dead.” Last year Darwish lamented: “How difficult it is to be Palestinian, and how difficult it is for a Palestinian to be a writer or a poet . . . How can he achieve literary freedom in such slavish conditions? And how can he preserve the literariness of literature in such brutal times?”

Indeed the times are brutal. Israel’s devastating blockade of Gaza continues, the daily humiliation and abuse of Palestinians at checkpoints shows no sign of abating, illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank are expanding, and a just peace remains beyond reach. And even in death, Darwish was denied his dream of return. The Israeli authorities refused to allow him to be buried in his birthplace of Al-Birwa inside Israel. He was buried Wednesday in Ramallah after a state funeral attended by tens of thousands of mourners.

An exile since the age of seven, Darwish could only return to language and he found a home in poetry like few others have been able to. And his words will always remain, despite his absence, forever present, “beyond the last frontier / after the last sky.”

... contd.