rafah.

reflections, lament, poetry, prayer

Hi community. Today, i come to you heavy-hearted and tear-stained.

I know that many of us who are bearing witness to the suffering of our Palestinian kin are feeling deep grief as we see the images coming out of rafah (and jabalia camp, and all of the west bank. And in congo and in sudan and in ethiopia) right now. I want to encourage us to keep feeling, even when it seems too painful. I see you. I hurt with you. I weep with you.

“An open invitation to all people in the world to become writers. There is a duty that everyone should take on, that they need to write about what they see and feel…Put your feelings on the page (or your electronic device) save it for your children and your grandchildren so they will learn what you experienced as a human.”

-Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian Poet

via @ashestoalexandra on instagram

in defiance of the systems that want us numb and disembodied:

I am flesh and blood and feeling.

My heart aches at the sight of bloodied corpses in piles. My stomach churns when I imagine the smell of charred skin. They burned them alive. Every fiber of my being shrieks because I know what it’s like to put a body in a bag.

I am brimming with rage that froths and bubbles in my throat. I am angry at Netanyahu for his cowardice. I am angry at the IOF for being so blinded by their own pain that they would inflict such pain on anyone else. I am angry at the American government for their complete moral apathy and greed-soaked capitalist agenda. I am angry at my own bloodline for its history of violence and colonization.

I am swimming in lament. Tears gush from my eyes at unpredictable intervals. I watch a father kiss his dead son goodbye. Other men must pull him away. I watch a young boy scream in agony as he watches his father go up in flames. The cries of agonized mothers echoes in my soul.

I put my feet bare in the grass, sobbing into the loving arms of Mother Earth. I ask the trees to help carry my grief. I know that what I carry is not too heavy for the earth.

I am freshly invigorated. I trust my grief to be a catalyst for life. Another world is possible. I know this in my bones.

by kenzi

And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist,
Resist—and resist.

-from Enemy of the Sun by Samih al-Qasim

we get free together:

We have work to do and it starts in our own bodies. We must be rested if we are to keep resisting. Let this be a reminder to move your body, to greet the trees, to meet your beating hearts gently, to lean into community. My comments and dms are open for expressions of grief<3

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I Grant You Refuge:

I have returned frequently to this poem by Hiba Abu Nada over the last six months. I recite her words like a prayer, often accompanied by breathlessness and tears. She wrote this piece about a week before she was killed by an Israeli airstrike.

I Grant You Refuge
by Hiba Abu Nada (trans. Huda Fakhreddine)

1.
I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocket

from the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.

I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones who
change the rocket’s course
before it lands
with their smiles.

2.
I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones now asleep like chicks in a nest.

They don’t walk in their sleep toward dreams.
They know death lurks outside the house.

Their mothers’ tears are now doves
following them, trailing behind
every coffin.

3.
I grant the father refuge,
the little ones’ father who holds the house upright
when it tilts after the bombs.
He implores the moment of death:
“Have mercy. Spare me a little while.
For their sake, I’ve learned to love my life.
Grant them a death
as beautiful as they are.”

4.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and death,
refuge in the glory of our siege,
here in the belly of the whale.

Our streets exalt God with every bomb.
They pray for the mosques and the houses.
And every time the bombing begins in the North,
our supplications rise in the South.

5.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and suffering.

With words of sacred scripture
I shield the oranges from the sting of phosphorous
and the shades of cloud from the smog.

I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.

Hiba Abu Nada, Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator. via protean mag.

Finally, a prayer from my journal entry yesterday.

let death be gracious to the martyrs
let poppies bloom in the beds of their ashes 
let us ache,
let us rise

Til liberation, thank you for your presence,

kenz