Long poem written by Palestine's national poet Mahmoud Darwish during the Israeli siege of Ramallah in 2002, composed in real time as Palestinian Authority headquarters were surrounded by Israeli tanks. The poem records life in the besieged city with lyrical intensity, weaving elegy, defiance, and irony into a meditation on Palestinian endurance under occupation. One of Darwish's most politically direct works. Particularly meaningful for students and researchers studying Palestinian poetry and resistance, the Israeli siege of Ramallah in 2002, and Mahmoud Darwish's literary responses to military occupation and political crisis. Translated from its original Arabic by Munir Akash and Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore.
