Awaken The Guitar

If I were another on the road,
I would not have looked back,
I would have said what one traveler
said to another: Stranger! awaken
the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road
may extend and space may widen for us,
and we may get rescued from our story together:
you are so much yourself ... and I am
so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another
I would have belonged to the road,
neither you nor I would return.
Awaken the guitar and we might sense
the unknown and the route that tempts
the traveler to test gravity.
I am only my steps, and you are
both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road,
I would have hidden my emotions in the suitcase,
so my poem would be of water, diaphanous, white,
abstract, and lightweight...stronger than memory,
and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:
My identity is this expanse!

Traveling Wilburys : End of the Line


If I were another on the road,
I would have said to the guitar:
Teach me an extra string!
Because the house is farther,
and the road to it prettier---
that's what my new song would say.
Whenever the road lengthens the meaning renews,
and I become two on this road:
I...and another!

--Mahmoud Darwish
If I Were Another