{"id":872,"date":"2009-10-16T14:59:22","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T14:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/10\/dharma-poetry-mahmoud-darwish.html"},"modified":"2009-10-16T14:59:22","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T14:59:22","slug":"dharma-poetry-mahmoud-darwish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/dharma-poetry-mahmoud-darwish.html","title":{"rendered":"Dharma Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the dharma poem of the week, a wonderful poem by Mahmoud Darwish.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
I Was Not With Me<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Staring at the ceiling, resting my face on my hand, like some-<\/div>\n
body stealing up on a fresh idea, or lying in wait for a gleam <\/div>\n
of inspiration.  After a few hours I realized I wasn’t there on<\/div>\n
the ceiling, or here on the chair, and my mind was blank. I <\/div>\n
was absorbed in nothing, in total, complete emptiness, sepa-<\/div>\n
rated from my being, sheltered by a benign absence, and free<\/div>\n
from pain.  I was neither sad nor happy, for nothingness has<\/div>\n
no connection to emotion, nor to time.  Not a single memory<\/div>\n
shook me awake from this trance, and no fear of my fate dis-<\/div>\n
turbed my obliviousness to the future.  For some reason, I was <\/div>\n
sure I would live until tomorrow.  I could not hear the sound<\/div>\n
of the rain shattering the smell of the breeze outside, nor the <\/div>\n
flutes bearing the inside away.  I was nothing in the presence <\/div>\n
of nothing, and I was calm, trusting, and confident.  For how love-<\/div>\n
ly it is for a person to be nothing, only once, not more!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
…<\/div>\n
I think the last two words are particularly interesting.  Thoughts?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is the dharma poem of the week, a wonderful poem by Mahmoud Darwish. I Was Not With Me Staring at the ceiling, resting my face on my hand, like some- body stealing up on a fresh idea, or lying in wait for a gleam  of inspiration.  After a few hours I realized I wasn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nDharma Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/dharma-poetry-mahmoud-darwish.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dharma Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is the dharma poem of the week, a wonderful poem by Mahmoud Darwish. 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He writes book reviews for The Brooklyn Rail. His poetry and fiction can be found on his website: http:\/\/thepennies.blogspot.com. He believes enlightenment is real.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/pgriffin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}