Prelude to road trip . . .

If I Were Another

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked back,
I would have said what one traveler said
to another: stranger! awaken
the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road
may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued
from our story together: you are so much yourself. And I am
so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,
so that neither I nor you would return. Awaken the guitar
and we might sense the unkonwn and the route that tempts
the traveler to test gravity. I am only
my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.
If I were another on the road, I would have
hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem
would be of water, diaphanous, white,
abstract, and lightweight . . . stronger than memory,
and weaker than dew drops, and I would have said:
my abyss is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, i would have said
to the guitar: teach me an extra string!
Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier--
that's what my new song would say. Whenever
the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two
on this road . . .

Mahmoud Darwish
translated by Fady Joudah