And what I don't understand I grasp it only when it's too late.

My homeland is not a suitcase, and I am no traveller

Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write. When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She's not a symbol.

The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.

Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we have one goal, one, one: to be.

Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be reborn out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace ... with life.

And what I don't understand I grasp it only when it's too late.