Mahmoud Darwish Poem Think Of Others 💫

He realized: he had been afraid his whole life. Afraid of being called a traitor. Afraid of empathy because empathy felt like surrender.

That afternoon, he surveyed a new settlement road cutting through olive groves. He measured angles, elevations, distances — clean numbers on clean paper. Then an old woman appeared from behind a broken stone terrace. She didn't shout. She just stood holding a green branch, leaves trembling. mahmoud darwish poem think of others

Later, Adam learned her son had been detained the night before. The army had taken him from his bed. She had no one left to help harvest the olives. The road would run exactly where her trees had stood for three hundred years. He realized: he had been afraid his whole life