From Where?

The whisper of a Palestinian girl, inspired by Legislative Decree No. 6, which grants the educated Lebanese woman her political rights, full and undiminished.

The breezes blow, gentle and soft, and stir the bells with rapture; and the birds come rejoicing, singing, and settle on a jasmine that has crowded up against a rose at my window... and a joyous melody flows from the mingling of chime and birdsong... a melody that is glad tidings —
and I ask, from where?
And the answer comes, and in it is the sweetness of the mountain, the clearness of the springs among its folds, and the awe of the cedars upon its shoulder; in it is the pride of woman now made whole, and her smile now made equal...
in it are a thousand and one meanings!
And I raise my eyes to heaven, and in them is a tear such as they have not known since they came to be... Enough for it that it gathers the two opposites: joy and release, sorrow and suppression... enough for it that it tells the tale of a soul that hopes in the measure of its misery, that exists in the measure of its nothingness —
a refugee soul!... Who am I, O my Lord?
I feel and I think... so I exist; but who feels my existence, who watches over me?
From whom shall I take my rights? From what patch of the earth? From what people in all existence — "from where?"
And the answer comes, and in it is the bitterness of despair, the silence of the bells in the sky of my country, and the desolation of life along its roads...
Would that I knew from where!