14 Comments
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Sarah O'Neal's avatar

there were so many lines that struck me… “There is no return/ that restores me/ to what we were before the leaving.” so moving… i am thankful you shared this poem

Mohammed R. Mhawish's avatar

Thank you Sarah!

Sarah Sills's avatar

😭 Straight to the heart.

Mohammed R. Mhawish's avatar

Thanks a lot Sarah!

Stephanie Benn's avatar

There is so much devastating imagery and so much strength and beauty. I found myself thinking of the performance of this poem as a stage play or a dance, a living prayer and a cosmic cry.

Jocelyn's avatar

Wow, Mohammed. What a piece of writing.

Ruth Garbus's avatar

I am so moved by your poem. It is ravishing.

felice033@hotmail.com's avatar

❤️ This is something that only a Palestinian can write

Devastating and Beautiful at the same moment as a lived experience that is still fresh and raw. Thank you for sharing Mohammed♥️🌹

May Palestine be free one day and forever stay that way

Mashallah

🥹✌️🤍

Brian K Barber's avatar

This is superb, Mohammed. Thank you for writing it.

Elena Potek's avatar

Breathtaking and heartbreaking. Thank you.

Mira Kamdar's avatar

Achingly beautiful. Devastatingly sad. I have all of your books. Reading you on this increasingly sullied platform is like finding a ray of light in the darkness. I will reread this and reflect more. Let the words sink slowly in. Thank you.

Rosalind Petchesky's avatar

What else is there to say? This poem embodies so many nuances of exile and loss with the unmistakable specificity of this genocide--the hunger, thirst, dissociation, displacement of the soul while the body is suspended "in every place except the place." I am profoundly moved and humbled, dear Mohammed.

Sanee I's avatar

Moved. Speechless.

I will come back to this poem over and over.

Thank you

Mindy Hall's avatar

Absolutely beautiful. Several snippets really hit:

And the artists—

oh, the artists

who do not make beauty

for the approval of the beautiful—

who make it the way the body makes breath,

never for glory,

nor the ledger,

who make it because the lungs

will have it so.

I am free

in the way a torn page is free—

separated from the book,

still bearing the words,

unable to be read

in the sequence

the author intended.

There is a grief for which no elegist has written—

the grief of the person

who finds their country

faithfully reproduced

in every place

except the place

Thank you. Thank you so much.