Al Miftah

Behind the hills,
behind the walls,
there was your house,
once,
now owned by foreigner
dwelling in your land,
now made a foreign country
where foreigners feel
at home,

While you
your children,
and grand children
have to rot in foreign countries
where they say you are at home,
now.

But you keep the old key.
In you pocket,
on the wall,
or in your hearth,
You keep the key.

They told you
to forget,
they told you
the door is theirs.
They made a new lock,
they made new walls
and marked the address
in a foreign language.

Maybe there is no door,
no house anymore?
May be they destroyed it
and made their house
on the soil where
your father, you mother,
your uncles, aunts and cousins
all dwelled,
once:
On the soil of your land,
now made a foreign country?

May be there was a tree
in front of the house,
they cut it down
and threw it away.
- But the roots
are still there
down below,
waiting for the end of a long winter
to grow again.

And you kept the old key.
In you pocket,
on the wall
or in your hearth.
You kept the key.

They told you to forget it
and to go home,
somewhere else
where your home is not,
forgetting the key
and the door
and the house
that were yours.
But you kept the old key.
In you pocket,
on the wall
or in your hearth,
You kept the key.

Then you,
dwelling now in foreign countries
where we
are at home
showed us the key
and told us
about the home
that is still in your hearth
- Or even, may be,

is still there,
- Or part of it,
at least,
made old rubbles
or scattered stones
laying still there
in amusement parks

And the souls
of the displaced
sleep
in the hearth of these stones.

Sleeping but still alive.

And we,
after you showed the key,
happened to get the key,
to the whole story
of the house, of the land,
We happened to learn
strange sounding word:
Al Nakba, Al Awda, Filistin
We happened to catch
what they do not say on radio,
what we cannot read in papers:
We happened to see the key
taken out of you pocket

Therefore,
keep the key, brother
grasp it, hold it firmly
keep the key, sister,
we keep it with you
till you find the door
there,
where you home is

Who knows,
May we
go with you,
then?
Just watching how,
in the sunrise,
You put the key in the keyhole
and uncover the roots
of deeply buried trees,
to let them
flourish again.

Laurent Vonwiller (Switzerland) 15.5.2008