Taha Muhammad Ali (1931–2011) was born in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya, destroyed during the 1948 war. The owner of a souvenir shop in Nazareth, he was also the author of five books of poetry in Arabic and of So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005. His biography, by Adina Hoffman, is entitled My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century.

Photograph by Nina Subin.

Two Poems

by Taha Muhammad Ali

There Was No Farewell

We did not weep
when we were leaving—
for we had neither
time nor tears,
and there was no farewell.
We did not know
at the moment of parting
that it was a parting,
so where would our weeping
have come from?

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