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Occupation and Oppression – A Palestinian Might Say


"A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare."

Mahmoud Darwish (1941 – 2008, poet & author, Palestine's National Poet)


View with a heart from my bedroom cottage

    

                    A Palestinian Might Say 

What? 

You don’t feel at home in your country, 

almost overnight? 

All the simple things 

you cared about, 

maybe took for granted. . . 

you feel 

insulted, invisible? 

Almost as if you’re not there? 

But you’re there. 

Where before you mingled freely. . . 

appreciated people who weren’t 

just like you. . . 

divisions grow stronger. 

That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do. 

(Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens. 

Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.) 

Yes, a wall. Ours came later but. . . 

who talks about how sad the land looks, 

marked by a massive wall? 

That’s not a normal shadow. 

It’s something else looming over your lives. 

 

Naomi Shihab Nye

                        Arab American Poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist


Naomi  Shihab Nye, "A Palestinian Might Say" from The Tiny Journalist.  Copyright © 2019 by Naomi  Shihab Nye.  BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org


Comments

Ecraig said…
thank you for sharing these pieces. I was especially struck by the line "divisions grow stronger.

That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do."
Makes me think of an Orthodox Jew in my life who feels so connected to being part of a "chosen" people and I can't relate to that.
October 20, 2023 at 8:54 PM
Karina said…
Glad you write this – those lines struck me so deeply and made me chose this poem for Karinaland River. As a German, i/we cannot judge Israel, but at the same time, i feel we must not be silent when human rights are violated. And Palestinian occupation, humiliation and suffering has gone on for too long – how extremely devastating the situation now!!! Many warned of this as inevitable....
October 20, 2023 at 9:23 PM
Alex K said…
What a striking poem. As a Jew, it is hard for me to read. I find myself wanting to deflect, look away. Like I imagine many Germans did in Hitler's time, like many of us Americans do in respect to Black people. We pay a price in doing so: that "looming" wall shadowing our heart our soul.

Your photograph-the oak branches on either side look like 2 arms of an open heart.

October 21, 2023 at 12:12 PM
Karina said…
Yes, we must open our heart's wings...
October 21, 2023 at 7:52 PM
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