In memory of my grandfather, who fled his home in Gaza, and journeyed to Australia to protect his children. Always gentle and patient. 

    How did the Great Exodus lead us here?

    Sneakers of young boys sprinkle the streets like carnations 

    Martyred blood stains the palms of matriarchs 

    Yet unshaken are the defenders of Al-Aqsa. 

    A land once laced with the wealth of Soloman (a) 

    The man who made winds subservient to him

    By the will of his Creator.

    A land of shared prophecy 

    From the progeny of Abraham (a)

    A land where slingshots meet bulletproof vests laden with cowardice 

    And bare skin bears the bruises of batons

    But there is no shame in the bruises of this fight

    For David met Goliath with not stature nor height

    Simply God’s sanction as his might 

    There is no shame in the bruises of this fight.

    Born to Bethlehem, a healer, a man of holy scripture 

    Jesus (a) preached love for one’s brother

    In a city now defined by disdain for the Other

    A checkpoint to sustain prey versus predator 

    But which prey will flee

    When God is its protector?

    Omar (r) entered a land scarred by its predecessors 

    Yet he stitched a wound of millennia 

    With one noble gesture

    “No life or home is to be stolen”

    Declared the humble conqueror 

    And it is our demise that this lesson we no longer ponder 

    Lakes of innocent red

    Haunt Jerusalem’s memory

    Its streets shutter at the day of 1099

    When synagogues and mosques became graveyards

    When people fell on swords instead of in prayer 

    The ghost awakens in Al-Aqsa 

    While worshippers weep tear gas on the holy Night of Destiny 

    And the world waves its white feather,

    The Crusade returns

    As subtle and insidious as ever

    But from a grave, a flower blossoms

    The earth revives for a chance at redemption

    The days of Saladin 

    The days of a Jerusalem exclusive to no creed,

    Home to all who believed.

    The Catastrophe 

    The severing of an artery 

    The generations whose ancestry is rooted in the yellow and green palms of Haifa

    Of Akko and Jaffa 

    And the lost cities 

    They have never visited

    But can hear in the murmur of their grandfather’s heartbeat –

    Home 

    Home 

    Home.

    The ongoing catastrophe, 

    Of a land where dead children are murdered children 

    And martyrs rise above rockets

    And God above them all

    So glistening red and brown cheeks 

    Summon a resistance of stones and keffiyehs 

    Because there will be no white flag 

    On God’s soil.