At a time when the heart of humanity is bleeding for Gaza, Here's how Yahia Lababidi, the Arab-American poet and writer of Palestinian background expresses his pain.
During a Genocide
You will find that during a genocide
most words lose their meaning
Some sound empty & others strange
Apart from unceasing prayer,
eloquence takes the form
of tears or kindness and solidarity
Even a quiet moan or sighing
is preferable to false words or worse:
a loud and wounding Silence…
Gaza, Capital of Hurt
Fitting that the word gauze
should have ties to Gaza (غزة)
a center of weaving
since the 13th-century
It's our turn, after hundreds of years
to dress Gazan wounds & wipe their tears…
You win, by losing
Awoke, in the middle of the night
with these words ringing in my ears:
You win (morally, spiritually)
by losing (on the physical plane)
O, Gaza, O, Palestine …
you had to be exterminated
to be seen & remembered.
Yahia Lababidi is an Arab-American writer of Palestinian background. He is the author of 11 books of poetry and prose, including most recently Quarantine Notes, short meditations composed during the Covid-19 pandemic. His new collection of poetry, Palestine Wail (Daraja Press) a love letter to Gaza, endorsed by beloved Palestinian-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. Nye writes: “So many of us are wailing with Yahia Lababidi, who is not afraid to call out truth in the midst of catastrophe, to question heartless power, to embrace so-called conundrums and ‘others’ who didn’t have to be, to grieve for the children who didn’t deserve any of this nightmare, and to offer revelations."
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