If not the screams of our mothers, disrupting the clouds If not her hands If not our trauma sold to the white gaze If not the palm trees drizzled in blood If not the sky pissing in panic If not our children If not our children If not the graves If not the bombs pulverizing the land If not the suits If not the silence If not a solution If not the cats, scurrying away If not the rubble If not the tears If not the names If not your empty land acknowledgments If not a genocide If not Shereen If not the bullets if not the prisons If not the news not breaking you If not our men If not the blockade If not our children If not our children If not our children
then nevermind your future.
Our mothers knit scarves out of our flesh —
Our children live forever —
Our voices language beyond the graves —
Our fathers slip tenderness into our palms —
Our shoulder blades become wings —
Palestine will live
Yaba I’m telling you Palestine will live
It is alive Yaba
You can turn off the news
to listen to the birds
Each song is a song of resistance
Each chirp a call for joy Yaba
It is written because I am writing it so:
We will find that fig tree you dream of —
We will smash the fruit between our teeth —
We will not mistake its sweetness for blood.
Noor Hindi is a Palestinian American poet living in Dearborn.
Part of our 2024 Fiction Issue.
