Facing life’s challenges and insecurity The heart yearns for serenity How can we ignore the oppressor’s meanness And simply understand his weakness With so much deception What is to change perception? We struggle to see the positives Even as we are flooded with negatives A child hungers amid flies and vultures While billionaires invest in ventures Zionists steal our lands And profit from our raised hands Tossing and turning in their dreary night Their biggest fear is truth coming to light The corrupt rule in Ramallah The weak put faith in Allah Within you feed the good wolf more If you do not want the bad one to score Does the struggle within have winners Or is it only in the case of the sinners? The righteous are also struggling Their caring hardly a blessing In darkness, creating, and sheltering light Is not a life of ease or of delight burden hard to carry in sickness or in health the (good) struggle goes on till the last breath “joyful participation in the sorrows of world” Buddhists had it right – participation a key word From good will and good deeds We are counseled that joy springs seeds We are advised to take time To appreciate the sublime For us Palestinians, it is harder to reason After decades of colonization and treason though words easy to say, we still struggle to understand and even harder to plan: How do we continue to withstand? How we have resilience How we create persistence Perhaps what sustains us is goodness all around And the beauty of this hallowed ground Perhaps we see the divine in all of us not just Palestinian baby Jesus we see it in birds singing early mornings even bats hunting insects evenings we see it in poor honest unemployed in families and children when joyed we see it in smiles and stretched hands in the rhythm of seasons in ancient lands we see it in memories of Karameh victory and all those who are symbols of bravery we see it in forgotten graves of massacred and in the hunger strikes of the incarcerated we see it in a smile of dabka girls who carry genes of their ancestral Canaanite queens we hear it in the rhythm of tabla and oud * the call of the athan**, church bells, and even silent sumoud we smell it in aroma of tabboun za’atar *** taste it in apricots, guava, figs, and loz akhdar**** we taste it in zibda baladiya***** with mountain honey and in herbal medicines curing the worst agony Countless generations passed in the arms of mother Palestine babies from Issa to the Ahmed of madonnas divine Our clock will end soon and we are no more As we join all those departed who struggled before We bequeath to our children beauty and burden Thoughts pass as the plants leave their seeds in the garden the secret to life is love and suffer grandfather told us yet, the dust of billions of forgotten ancestors remind us as we breathe it and eat it that we mortals must have humility and that humility added to struggle and love equals serenity the old country song says: in the end only kindness matters this old country man says: humility and love can conquer our madness “Stay human” Vittorio Arrigoni said In Palestine “Keep the hope alive” was echoed --------------------- *tabla and oud: eastern musical instruments corresponding to drum and guitar **athan: muslim call to prayer ***tabboun za’atar: bread of traditional kiln with thyme ****loz akhdar: green almonds *****Zibda baladiya: A country butter made from goat milk |
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