And you, when you sing, you do not sing to share the night with someone. Nor do you sing to measure the rhythm of a time without sing or rhythm. You sing, because the prison cell tempts you to speak of what you lack in perfect solitude to the world outside: Fields come to you with the rustling of golden ears of wheat. The sun fills your heart with the light of oranges. The flowers on slopes, tousled like the hair of a wild girl, come to you. The aroma of coffee charged with the exhilaration of cardamom comes to you. As if you had never noticed before all the vastness and gentleness that exists outside and celebration of nature that you lacked.

Just as in poems and at dusk, obscurity celebrates clarity, because a secret focal point emits its rays in directions and words and deprives darkness of the eternity of attributes. Tiny memories visit you in a herd of goats while stags leap like pinecones on a mountain road. In every song there is a girl waiting at a bus station or on a balcony. On every balcony there is a handkerchief waving and a dove seeking refuge.

You are you and more.

You are inhabited, like a housing complex, by those climbing the stairs and those going down to the street. Inhabited by kitchen utensils, washing machines, and quarrels of married couples over the best way to peel potatoes and fry fish. A stomach cramp is followed by a metaphysical cramp: Do angels get colds?

You are you, and less.

(Mahmoud Darwish)