To A Palestinian Child

One day, I will watch you playing in the olive groves

And under the lemon trees.

One day, I will watch you splashing in the sea,

Laughing for laughter’s sake

And not as an act of defiance.

But for now I will watch you with a stone in one hand

And a pen in the other,

Resisting with your tears, your lost childhood and your memory.

And resisting still with tenacious joy.

It is your joy that terrifies them.

It is your memory that signals their doom.

Their power grows and wanes

In the face of your memory and secret knowing.

A knowing no walls or checkpoints can erase.

A knowing that creeps into their hearts,

And confounds their guns.

Their sky may protect them,

But the trees shall speak one day

And pledge their allegiance to you.

The trees shall give you back the gift

Of what has always been yours:

This soil, doused in your ancestors’ blood,

This land, this street, this house.

So hold fast to those trees,

Tend to your olive groves and dance your Dabka.

Do not fear the beast,

For your smile maddens it.

It thrashes and lunges

And prowls in ever smaller circles,

Patrolling its vanishing borders of righteousness and history,

Back and forth,

In a ritual of knowing, knowing…

The Star is not long for this world.

Note: All my poems are published in medium.com/@asilrashid