Viewpoint by Mahmoud Darwish

"I am what I worship."

Viewpoint

by Mahmoud Darwish

The difference between narcissus

and sunflower

is a point of view: the first

stares at his image in water

and says, there is no I but I

and the second looks

at the sun and says I am

what I worship.

And at night, difference shrinks

and interpretation widens.

Published in The New York Review of Books, 2008. Translated by Fady Joudah.