Today, Mahmoud Darwish died. One of the world's greatest poets who had the power to evoke a place within a few lines of poetry and who spoke for himself, his people, and all people. Perhaps a tribute to his incisive use of contrasts is to think about the contrasts that I experienced today. At the Ajloun Soap Makers' House local women of Orjan, make soap as part of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature's program of helping the people around nature reserves. 
The soap transported me to a place of calm, relaxation and comfort. A place without danger or discomfort. A place of peace where people can comfortably spend time on relaxing amongst the natural scents of an herb garden. (Even though the picture looks like I am smelling old cheese, please know that I am just trying not to bury my face in the mint soap!)
The extra remnants of the lavender, mint, geranium, pomegranate, and coffee soap are made into balls of soap. The balls of herbal soaps along with the other products have helped to create a beneficial relationship between local women and the nature preserve.
Two hours later we were in a former Islamic castle that had been built over eight hundred years ago as part of a defensive barrier against the Crusaders. It was part of a line of castles stretching north to Aleppo and south to Cairo that ringed in the invading European Crusaders. In the castle we saw balls of stone. Twenty to fifty pounds of stone carved into balls to kill Crusaders or whoever attempted to attack the castle. Stone and time spent to kill and maim. When the castle was built Richard the Lionheart was attempting to recapture Jerusalem for the Crusader cause, and these balls of stone may have been created to kill or main him or his men.
Balls of soap that support the lives of poor women and create a real relationship between local communities and wildlife preservation -or- balls of war that were meant to kill and maim attackers?
I think Darwish would have preferred the natural scents of the soaps, but he was also willing to defend his home against what many consider to be a modern Crusader state. Centuries from now Darwish's poetry will still be read, and it will be read not for his resistance to occupation, but for his ability to evoke the smell of a cup of coffee and the arid richness of his land.
It is a human tragedy that we couldn't leave the Crusader/Muslim divide in the history of eight hundred years ago. In an historic note of the possibilities even during a time of war. Richard the Lionheart offered to end the Third Crusade through the marriage of his sister Joan to the Muslim mayor of Jerusalem--the brother of Saladin. Darwish also offered us a way out of the current conflict by showing all of those on the outside of the conflict what it meant to be Palestinian, to be an Arab, and to be a person who has lost Eden twice.You there, by the threshold of our door Come in, and sip with us our Arabic coffee
[you may even feel that you are human, just as we are]
you there, by the threshold of our door take your rockets away from our mornings
we may then feel secure [and almost human]...
When the helicopters disappear the doves fly back
white, very white, marking the cheeks of the horizon
with liberated wings. They revive their radiance and their ownership
of the sky, and of playfulness. Higher and higher they fly, the doves, very white.
‘O that the sky was real’ [a man passing between two bombs cried]
A sparkling sky, a vision, lightning!...
The martyr makes things clear to me: I wasn't seeking, beyond this place
The virgins of immortality, because I love life
On earth, among the pines and the fig-trees
But I can't reach it, so I took aim
With the last thing that belonged to me: the blood in the blue sky's body...
The dead besiege me. I have only changed my place of abode and my furnishings
The gazelle now walk on my bedroom’s roof
and the moon warms the ceiling from the pain
thus putting an end to my pain...
Writing is a small ant which bites extinction.
Writing is a bloodless wound...
Our cups of coffee. The birds the green trees
In the blue shadow, the sun bounds from one wall
To the other like a gazelle
Water in the clouds with unbounded forms in what's left
To us of the sky. And other things with postponed memories
Reveal that this morning is potent, splendid
And that we are the guests of eternity.
