We shall climb this mountain, Mourid Barghouti

A screenshot of a video released recently of Mourid Al Barghouti reciting his poem we shall climb this mountain on AJ+ Arabic

The sudden death of Palestinian poet Mourid Al Barghouti has left many of us who were touched by his life and his family's incredible talents baffled and saddened. I've been a big fan of his son's work since my college years and had the pleasure of seeing the two recite poetry in Cairo.

I found myself translating this poem of his in my head after his son Tamim introduced it in a video a few days ago, I figured it would be a nice tribute to just type this translation down and share it with the rest of the world since Mourid isn't as familiar as I wish he'd have been in non-Arabic speaking circles. 

Tamim mentioned at the beginning of the video that his father wrote down the first verse of this poem after he'd been diagnosed with cancer back in November 2020. It was originally published in Arabic in 2002 under the title ولدان يصعدان جبلا "Two boys climb a mountain". 

The line he wrote on a piece of paper was: We shall climb this mountain.

Here's a short tribute in English on Mourid Barghouti by Middle East Monitor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrTTs_k87qE

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قصيدة مريد البرغوثي الذي رحل عنا كتبها في ٢٠٠٢، وترجمتي السريعة لها تكريمًا له..

توجع قليلاً.. توجع كثيرا

سنصعد هذا الجبل

متعبين تماما

و حولي و حولك يأسان

يأسي و يأسك

رعبي و رعبك

Be in pain for a bit, be in a lot of pain

You and I shall climb this mountain,

Completely exhausted,

surrounded by two despairs,

your's and mine

your horror and my horror

يا صاحبي

نحن لسنا جبانين

أو بطلين

ولكننا ولدان بسيطان

مثل مكاتيب فلاحة غربوها

بسيطان

مثل نعاس الرعاة ومثل العطش

بسيطان

كالعائدين من الحقل للبيت

كالعائدين من الويل للبيت

نحن بسيطان

يا ليت قصتنا مثلنا

My friend, you and I are neither cowards,

Nor heroes,

we're merely two simple boys,

as simple as the letters,

a forcibly exiled woman from the village would write,

we're as simple,

as shepards' slumber, and thirst

we're as simple as folks,

coming home from the fields,

coming home from woe,

we're simple, and how I wish our story was simple, too.

الطريق إلى السهل هذا الجبل

الطريق إلى الأهل هذا الجبل

كل ما تشتهي كل ما أشتهي

يبدأ الآن أو ينتهي.

والأمل ذروة اليأس يا صاحبي!

الأمل..

توجع قليلا .. توجع كثيرا

توجع.. فإن الأمل ذاته موجع حين لا يتبقى سواه.

سنصعد هذا الجبل.

The road to the valley is this mountain,

The road to our family is this mountain,

All that you desire, all that I desire,

Starts or ends right now,

And hope, my friend, is the peak of despair!

Be in pain for a bit, be in a lot of pain

Be in pain, for hope itself is painful,

when it's the only thing left.

we shall climb this mountain!