UNKILLING THE FIELDS

In tribute to Bisan’s journalism under the bombs and the stories she brings back from the widening front of genocide in Gaza

in tribute to Youssef Abu Rabi, a young agricultural engineer assassinated as he was reclaiming land from under the rubble

the zionists
are creating
a no soldier’s land
beneath the rubble

what lies under
a bombed home
is as sacred
as the steadfast generations
who died
for the sake
of holding on to it

white settler real estate
can only dry-rot
and collapse
on a foundation
of men, women
and children buried alive

what lies under the rubble
is an ancestral ground
where native dreams
lie fallow

there are those
so brave
who whisper stories
to the plants
grown
on bits of land reclaimed
from the ruins –
a soil that is hallowed

to unkill the fields
by planting them
heals the wounded

the rubble still smolders
with the agony of voices
gone silent
while gentle ghosts
rise
from the dust
to keep the memories
of lost rooms
and murdered orchards
vibrant

the farmers
who clear the debris
where the wreckage once was
and look for seeds
to grow saplings
and much needed crops
where their houses stood
are treedom-fighters –
and
they are laser-targeted
in turn
for committing
in the midst of a genocide
the crime of survival

OUT OF MY MIND’S EARTH, A FIR

utopia
this Christmas around
is a thing of the past
and
dystopia
is
no longer
in the future
as we walk
on the cusp of it

i will not cut down
a Christmas tree
but let it live
and
i would prefer to grow
and decorate
out of my mind’s earth
a fir
under which i would place
gifts
that when unwrapped
would reveal
no wonderland trendy
corporate produced toys
but the building blocks of Hope –
the smiling wave
of a boy under colostomy
pulled alive
from under the rubble
for the second time,
toddlers’
delighted awe
seeing eggs
after such a long time,
a mother
planting the seedlings
of beans
in throwaway plastic
and beaming
when the first actually bloom,
a young man
daily cooking food
for hundreds of Gaza’s children
and
his gaze as hot
as his cauldrons
silently staring
the West in the eye

IT RAINS, IT RAINS ON GAZA

(…) to sleep
perchance to dream …

William Shakespeare

Modern psychiatric studies have established that sleep deprivation leading to the inability to dream – can lead to severe mental health challenges. Also sleep deprivation and dehydration are alongside food starvation one of the chief causes of child mortality in times of genocide.

many western intellectuals
have poeticized
rain

we all learned
the lines
by Paul Verlaine:
it is raining in my heart
like it is raining in the city

but
when a gentle pitter patter
of rain
just woke me up
from a deep sleep
i was reminded
i was safe
in the deceptively warm belly of the beast
under a roof as yet unbombed
but also
that we pay taxes
for the children
in Palestine
to be flooded
in polluted water
and deprived of sleep

we share the rainy season
but over there –
as winter drizzles
on icy torn tents
as the snowfall of phosphorus
burns
as the downpour of bombs
does not relent
as the infernal noise of drones
beats down
on exhausted minds –
all humans and their animals
are left
day and night, night and day
without the solace of sleep or rest
and
when parents tell their children
to risk forty winks
while they keep vigil,
the little ones are told
to lie down
with their runaway shoes on

it rains
it rains
on Gaza
and water is everywhere
but nobody can drink

one could fill
empty bellies
with water
and satiate hunger for
a little while longer
but
it rains
it rains
on Gaza
and nobody can drink

along the beachfront
the Big Blue is so tempting
in oil and gas so rich
so yielding of fish
so full of playful memories
yet one can die
from drinking
even a bit of its creamy foam

like the ordeal of Tantalus
the inability to drink
waste-filled
rainwater
where lost relatives float
is decreed
a torture supreme –
unspeakable

the zionists
in their hubris
try to weaponize
Mother Earth’s gifts
and send the IDF
to target
the back-up solar panels
built by the villagers
to replace the already devastated
electric infrastructure
desalinating their sea water

back here –
breaking news
heart-breaking news
about winter in Gaza
is interrupted
by ads on the best brands
of mineral water
and
failproof big pharma
miracle drugs
(allegedly not animal
or human animal tested)
sold
at elite spa luxury cures
to induce
refreshing and longevity-enhancing
sleep

LIGHT TO LIGHT, A LIBERATION FIRE

here
in my time zone
i am in minutes countdown
to the New Year
and
i say to y’all
wherever you are –
do you feel it?

do you feel
how there are two types
of fireworks –
the fancy tax-paid ones
our war-mongering elites
are getting ready
to shower us with
and
our hope-held candles
all over the world
that are,
light to light,
spreading
a liberation fire?

do you hear it –
the language
of Love and Poetry
for which
imperialism
has no glossary?

can you touch it –
your finger held
to the wind
where fly the youth-held kites
of victory?

can you believe in it –
our People’s power
made
so close, so real
you can place it
firmly in the hands
of those
in whose eyes
we are the next circle
of those
to gather ancestrally?

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

UNKILLING THE FIELDS | OUT OF MY MIND’S EARTH, A FIR | IT RAINS, IT RAINS ON GAZA | LIGHT TO LIGHT, A LIBERATION FIRE

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright