Yesterday I saw a young man dragged into the room across from me as I was taken out for corrective therapy. He looked at me. I recognized him, and I knew, viscerally, that he was saying good bye. Today he is not there. The room is bare and sanitized, there is no trace that reveals that anyone was ever in that room. There is only my memory and their memory and maybe your memory too. He was a young man from Israel that quit the IDF after serving for a few months. His reasons were never shared with me, but his poetry was:
Death moves freely
while life is calculated.
I will show you how the
twisted mind
will find its way.
-How?
Through the healing song
its essence is similar
to this……………
Palestine
do you see your sunsets?
Do you hear the sound of the grass
reaching out to the other side of the wall?
Do you hear the sound of your memories
memories that have become the unexpressed sadness
of a raped and stolen home?
Palestine
I am not America nor Israel
I am you
I am the dead seeds at the checkpoints
I am the life that is taken from children
Palestine
I am sorry
I am sorry for cowardly silencing my voice
I will share my mouth with your voice
The moth has become camouflaged
on the glass window for everyone to see
for our hearts and minds
to feel and understand the shame and hate
that gives them life.
Palestine refuses the death of voice
the death of resistance
the death of the ungrown tree
Breathe:
Suheir Hammad
Breathe:
Mahmoud Darwish
Breathe:
Sami Al-Qasim
Breathe:
People
Do not speak of Israel………
It is sacred
Speak of Palestine-
It is there
naked
crucified
and
soon will become sacred
breathe:
children
breathe:
women
breathe:
men
breathe:
people
our hearts have screamed with love and resistance to the world
“our being will not be taken!!!!!”
Some were shot below the knee
and some were shot in the chest and then died…….
The scream was heard in the womb
of tomorrow’s generations…..
I see no flags between Israel and Palestine
there are only the colors that seem to paint
a world in the color of well-meaning flags.
I see no flags between Palestine and Israel
I see being
Israeli soldier putting down her gun
putting down his gun
to shoot words of wisdom guided by love
to bring death to the thought that whispers
life into Israel’s justification
shooting to bring death to the life of Israel’s occupation
I see woman
I see man
suicide bombers
hoping that in their explosions
the hate in their minds will sooth the pain in their hearts
I see mother
I see father
with no life…………
their lives taken by the death of their son
their lives taken by the death of their daughter-
their children
taken by an explosion of hate
taken by an explosion of love
breathe:
Rami Elhanan
breathe:
Ishay Rosen-Zvi
breathe:
Wafa Idris
breathe:
people
it is certain that nothing will change
it is certain that everything will change
it is certain because uncertainty is certain in tomorrow’s generations
tomorrow’s generations perpetually imagine and explore
tomorrow’s generations struggle and resist
and that is why tomorrow’s generations love, create, and live……they live-
breathe:
truth
breathe:
resistance
breathe:
Bi’lin
breathe:
Ni’lin
breathe:
Abud
breathe:
Iraq Burin
breathe:
West Bank
breathe:
Gaza
breathe………………..