Almond blossoms and beyond

From the Publisher: Almond Blossoms and Beyond is one of the last collections of poetry that Mahmoud Darwish left to the world. Composed of brief lyric poems and the magnificent sustained Exile cycle, Almond Blossoms holds an important place in Darwish's unparalleled oeuvre. It distills his late style, in which, though the specter of death looms and weddings turn to funerals, he threads the pulses and fragilities and beauties of life into the lines of his poems. Their liveliness is his own response to the collection's final call to bid "Farewell / Farewell, to the poetry of pain."

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1: You -- Think of others -- Now, in exile -- When you gaze long -- If you walk on a street -- Cafe, and you with the newspaper -- 2: He -- He and none other -- He waited for no one -- Orange-like -- Wedding over there -- Wide space -- 3: I -- These are the words -- To describe an almond blossom -- I sit at home -- I love autumn and the shade of meanings -- As for spring -- I used to love winter -- As if I were joyful -- Happy (I know not why) -- I do not know the stranger -- 4: She -- Beautiful women are beautiful women -- Like a small cafe, that's love -- Hand that scatters wakefulness -- I wish I were younger -- I do not sleep to dream -- She forgot a cloud in the bed -- She/he -- She does not love you -- She has not come -- When you are with me -- Now, after you -- 5: Exile 1 -- Tuesday, a bright day -- 6: Exile 2 -- With the fog so dense on the bridge -- 7: Exile -- 3: Like a hand tattoo in an ode by an ancient Arab poet -- 8: Exile 4 -- Counterpoint (for Edward W Said).