The Obedience of Water, George Szirtes

This poem is the English version by George Szirtes of an original poem written for “A New Divan” by the Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, via a literal translation by Khaled Aljbaili. The original poem was inspired by the book of The Tyrant in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “West-Eastern Divan” (published 1819).