Years ago, I received a query from a prominent editor about a line in Mahmoud Darwishâs long poem, âThe âRed Indianâsâ Penultimate Speech to the White Man,â (If I Were Another). The poem channels Chief Seattleâs voice and spirit. In the poemâs second section, the line in question follows an address to Columbus, âthe free [who] has the right to find India in any sea, / and the right to name our ghosts as pepper or Indian.â
The line in question is this: âYou have burst seventy million heartsâŚenough, / enough for you to return from our death as monarch of the new timeâ:
isnât it time we met, stranger, as two strangers of one time
and one land, the way strangers meet by a chasm?
We have what is oursâŚand we have what is yours of sky.
You have what is yoursâŚand what is ours of air and water.
âI just donât get where he got the seventy million from?â the editor asked.
I didnât reply. I didnât wonder about the accuracy of Darwishâs claim. Maybe he included all the Natives annihilated in the Americas over the centuries. The only thought I had in my head was, âIs this really whatâs bothering you about the poem?â
Years later, in a daydream, a marginalia of my soul visited me, and it spoke thus: âDo you remember those seventy million punctured hearts in Darwishâs poem? If youâre ever asked again, if the person who asks you says that historical studies show the number is not possible or whatever, remember the buffalos.â
The buffalo hearts are also native hearts.
Who will count the donkeys, dogs, and cats in Gaza?
The birds will return.
â Fady Joudah, in his essay âA Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilationâ