Inseparable

One single land dissected by two great rivers.
One solitary mass of earth divided
by a line of doubtful identity.
Here, rain ceases to be rain and
Children grow as bloodstained leaves of grass.
This land, some call it the battlefield;
for others, it is their homeland.
Here, the stray dogs greet
the dwellers in the morning
with insomnia of sharp yelps, and
vultures feast on their lifeless bodies
in the harsh noon.
Among these ruins one can not live.
But we live among these ruins!
Live among these and not have a heart
which is not wounded
by the memories of a vanished homeland?
Impossible in my language!
The wound needs healing.
Instead of the vile smell of gunpowder,
fragrance of jasmine in the air,
this spring, and the spring after that.

Having lived together long,
longer than many lifetimes,
in this parenthesized geography
We have become inseparable,
as friends or foes.
To take up arms against another is
to descend into the heart of the inferno.
To unlearn history is
to enter a nightmare without an exit.
There is hope if we close, once and for all,
this book of divided theology;
if we sharpen the edge of our love
and not of the knife,
there is hope
for a chance in a lifetime
to wake up free, free of fear
and climb the heights of history
under the sky of peaceful Mesopotamia.