Only humans can be foreign:
The rest is Mixed Vegetation,
Subversive Moles, and Wind.²
When these walls are levelled—
The unquiet echoes will finally take Wing …³
We strike Electric influence
Into a race Unstayed by wall!⁴
We’re breaking our head against a wall—
But the wall is rotten: one Shove & it’ll Collapse!⁵
When we Dream Beautiful Dreams,
We Breach all Borders!⁶
Those with no fence around
Their land have No Enemies.⁷
When all boundaries are gone—
The country shall revert to its ancient Shape;⁸
While borders still stand we’re in prehistory—
Real History will start when all borders are gone.⁹
Our border is now no line between two hills—
But the line our Planet makes in circling the Sun.¹⁰
¹ Suheir Hammad, Break (Embargo)
² Wisława Szymborska tr. Barańczak & Cavanagh, Psalm
³ J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
⁴ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows
⁵ Vladimir Lenin, quoted by Tariq Ali in The Dilemmas of Lenin
⁶ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Munir Akash & Carolyn Forché, Mural
⁷ Burundi proverb
⁸ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
⁹ Yevgeny Yevtushenko tr. Bouis & Todd, On Borders
¹⁰ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness