Four sisters
climb the hill alone
in black clothes.
Four sisters sigh
facing the thicket.
Four sisters in the dark
read wet letters.
A train coming
from Artouf passed
behind the picture.
A horse carrying
a girl from Zakaria
neighs on the ridge
across the plain.
In the gorge
clouds slowly pass.
Four sisters
from Zakaria, alone
in black clothes
on the hill.
from The Habit of Exiles
English
Arabic
My heart is suspicious, brother
My stance is final
No one will guess
The storms in my head
I no longer have confidence in those
Who pass through at night.
"Four Sisters from Zakaria" translated from the Arabic by Sargon Boulus from "Putting Description in Order" (1998). Reprinted from Banipal No. 12. "The Habit of Exiles" translated from the Arabic by May Jayyusi and Alan Brownjohn for East-West Nexus/PROTA.
Ghassan Zaqtan was born in 1954 near Bethlehem and lives in Ramallah. He has worked with the Palestinian resistance movement and was editor of "Bayader" literary magazine of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is editor-in-chief of the quarterly poetry journal "Al-Shoua'ra" and is co-founder and director of the House of Poetry in Ramallah. Zaqtan also writes two weekly newspaper columns.
Zaqtan earned a teachers' training degree from Jordan and worked as a physical education teacher. He has published several volumes of poetry and a novel, and his poetry has been translated in many journals and magazines.