Am I the scorching sun above
Or the child exposed? [1]
Mimicking this wilting weed
My lone shade in the desert
Every drop of hope I had
You drank your fill; excess spills down your beard [2]
The pharaoh, once your oppressor
Now your paragon [3]
Screeching owls circles your gardens [4]
Screaming “blood guilt”
Mass graves fertilize olive trees [5]
Our graves left unwatered [6]
Criticize our modest blossom
While you leach our tongue
Tell us all of your exceeding greatness
Through "small, death-spitting mouths" [7]
Fingers rise to flick the locusts [8]
That you resurrect
Mother Hagar smiles and wipes her eyes
God has seen us writhe in dust
Our thirst will be sated
Our keys, kept, will open the floodgates [7]
[1] Genesis 21:15-20.
[2] It is difficult to overstate how large of a role the fight over water plays in the tensions between the Palestinians
and the Israelis. It is often the case that the Palestinians unjustly have their groundwater confiscated by the Israelis.
Space does not permit a fuller discussion than this; for more details see Troubled Waters—Palestinians Denied Fair
Access to Water: Israel Occupied Palestinian Territories, (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2009),
https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdf/mde150272009en.pdf.
[3] It is interesting to note that in the Quran, the pharaoh is the archetype of evil. “…the Koran’s most important
villain.” Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick, The Vision of Islam, (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1994), 32,
Kindle Edition.
[4] Though there are only mere fragments of Arabic poetry available to us from the pre-Islamic era, one of the
common motifs of that poetry was the idea of the thirsty owl. The mythology of the owl was that it would screech
during the night, acting as an omen, signaling that a wrongful death has been committed, and that bloodguilt must be
avenged. See T. Emil Homerlin, “Echoes of a Thirst Owl: Death and Afterlife in Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry,” in
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3, July 1985.
[5] Mass graves were a tragic reality in the Palestinian exile. Elias Chacour recounts of when he discovered one as a
child, playing soccer in a field, only to find a welted, decomposing severed arm shooting up out of the ground.
Chacour, Blood Brothers, chapter 5, 1:34:00.
[6] Watering gravesites was a literal practice in pre-Islamic Arabia, the idea being that the ghosts of the departed were
thirsty either literally, or on occasion, metaphorically for justice. See Homerlin, “Echoes of a Thirsty Owl,” 183.
[7] Elias Chacour, Blood Brothers, chapter 6.
[8] In an uproar against the Israeli occupation, the Palestinians engaged in two widespread revolts against the Israelis, known as the first and second Intifada (1987 & 2000). The term "Intifada" is an Arabic word roughly translating to "the shaking off," with the connotation being that of flicking off a bug.
[9] During my time in Palestine, I met with several Palestinian families who kept as heirlooms the keys to the homes
they were driven out of. To this day can be seen all throughout the West Bank imagery of the key, symbolizing the
hope to one day return to their homes.
