Samih al-Qasim: The Last Train

[While well-known as a poet, the late Samih al-Qasim was also a talented essayist, writing regularly in the Arabic-language press of Palestine/Israel. He was also a remarkable public speaker and letter writer. Over a period of two years—from May 1986 to May 1988—al-Qasim exchanged a series of extraordinary letters with Mahmoud Darwish. The letters are monuments to poetry and language and also friendship and love and, not surprisingly considering the authors, contain some of the most moving discussions of home and exile in the Arabic language. Published as a series of “packets,” the collection of letters instantly became a classic of modern Arabic literature. The following letter comes early in the correspondence. In the letter that precedes this, Darwish has just asked al-Qasim to visit the ruins of his home village of al-Birweh in the Galilee, and to find the old carob tree that still remains there. “If you pass by the carob tree tomorrow,” Darwish writes, “embrace it and engrave your name and mine on its trunk.”]

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