In 2005, I went to Palestine for three weeks with my parents, my wife and our daughter, aged two. We were invited to carry out workshops with young artists and kids. A mural was painted on the wall of a playground in a camp next to Qalendia check point. We made several friends and knew some of our roots were now planted in that earth. During that time and after I wrote a long poem called Destinez moi la Palestine. Later on it was published in an Arabic/French version and printed in Jerusalem. The friends who made that publication possible kept it as a surprise and one day I unexpectedly received a copy of the book. How grateful I was.
In 2010, I was invited to do a series of readings from that book in different cities in the West Bank. Again, in the face of what I was witnessing I had no other choice than to write. This gave birth to these poems. In French they were published by Editions Samizdat under the title Hommes sous hommes: Écrits de la Palestine occupée. My father then translated them into English and a few were published in Modern Poetry in Translation and one in the Guardian.
Bande de Gaza (souvenirs)
Gaza Strip (memos)
Une radio diffuse
une voix humaine
devant le silence
From a radio
a human voice
addresses silence
Des pierres chaudes
de maisons détruites
coulent à l’horizon
Warm stones
of destroyed homes
to the horizon
Des mouches attaquent
un cheval maigre
sous le ciel clair
Flies attack
a lean horse
under a clear sky
Un vieil homme traverse
au dos d’une carriole
chargée d’herbes sauvages
An old man passes
astride a cart
loaded with wild herbs
Des enfants jouent
de toutes les couleurs
à chaque carrefour
Playing children
with their colours
at each cross-road
Des rues de sable
passent sous les fenêtres
des hôtels inoccupés
Roads of sand
pass beneath the windows
of empty dwellings
Des paires de chaussures
forment une foule dense
à l’heure de la prière
Pairs of shoes
make a dense crowd
at the hour of prayer
Sous les palmiers osseux
des carcasses de serres
s’abandonnent au soleil
Beneath lean palm trees
wrecks of greenhouses
wide open to the sun
A l’entrée des tunnels
des couvertures recouvrent
le sommeil des ouvriers
Where tunnels begin
blankets cover
sleeping workers
Des filets de pêcheurs
laissent passer le vent
entre leurs mailles
Fishing nets
let the wind
through their meshes
Au large de la mer
des vagues roulent
encore ailleurs
Out at sea
waves still roll
elsewhere
Une voix répète
Is this life?
It’s no life!
A voice repeats
Is this life?
It’s no life!
Yves Berger, Hommes sous hommes: Écrits de la Palestine occupée was published by Editions Samizdat, Geneva in 2016.
Cover image via Palestine Open Maps
All drawings by Yves Berger
English translations by John Berger
We have published further extracts from Hommes sous Hommes by Yves Berger here.
This is part of ROOT MAPPING, a section of The Learned Pig devoted to exploring which maps might help us live with a clear sense of where we are. ROOT MAPPING is conceived and edited by Melanie Viets.
