When we Dream Beautiful
Dreams, we Breach all Borders²
When these Walls are Levelled – the
Unquiet echoes will finally Take Wing³
“You’re Breaking your head against a Wall” –
“The Wall’s Rotten: one Shove & it’ll Collapse”⁴
While Borders still Stand we’re in Prehistory –
Real History will start when all Borders are Gone⁵
Only what is Human can truly be Foreign – the rest
Is Mixed Vegetation, Subversive Moles, and Wind⁶
Our Border now is No Line between Two Hills –
But the line our Planet makes in circling the Sun⁷
When all Boundaries are Gone – the
Country reverts to its Ancient shape⁸
Those with No Fence around
Their land have No Enemies⁹
Strike Electric influence in
A race Unstayed by Wall¹⁰
¹ Suheir Hammad, Break (Embargo)
² Mahmoud Darwish tr. Munir Akash & Carolyn Forché, Mural
³ J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
⁴ Vladimir Lenin, quoted by Tariq Ali in The Dilemmas of Lenin
⁵ Yevgeny Yevtushenko tr. Bouis & Todd, On Borders
⁶ Wisława Szymborska tr. Barańczak & Cavanagh, Psalm
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
⁸ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
⁹ Burundi proverb
¹⁰ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows