... a stone

I WISH I WERE A STONE

I long for nothing
for neither yesterday passes, nor tomorrow comes
and my present doesn't advance or retreat
nothing happens to me!
I wish I were a stone, I said, I wish
I were some kind of stone for the water to burnish me,
turn me yellow, or green . . . and I could be placed
in a room as a sculpture, or as an exercise in sculpture,
or as matter for the bursting of the necessary
out of the frivolity of the needless . . .
I wish I were a stone
so I can long for anything!

Mahmoud Darwish, Diaries
(translated by Fady Joudah)