Editor’s note: Dena Shunra has been working on this poem since 2002. She delivered it recently in Washington state and thought it a good piece for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I think your name was Mary
Though maybe they called you Maryam,
All I know: you were great with child.
Your third. Two stayed home (with Iyyad?)
The news report, in Hebrew,
Didn’t give me too many details:
There was gloating in the comments.
There often is. The Golden Rule fails.
Yussuf, your dude, was your driver
And took you the quickest way
There was only one checkpoint to go through,
Which was fully locked down that day.
The soldiers shouted: “Hawiya!”
Then they shoed you away: “oudrub!”
They hurried you off: “yallah, yallah”
And they wouldn’t let you through.
Babies come when they’re ready
Not when the soldiers okay
And yours – a third – came quickly
Whatever the soldiers might say.
They knew nothing of labor
And laughed when you knelt, then writhed
They cocked their guns when Yussuf
Tried to pull you out from inside.
So you and the baby stayed in it
In that final, birthing car
The ambulance – across the gate
Was kept away, kept far.
This was a few years ago in December
All I saw was the briefest report:
“Palestinian died in labor
Near a Bethlehem checkpoint.”
The soldiers – when they were questioned –
Said their orders were clear, which is true:
Lockdown for all of Hanukka
And not to let anyone through.
Not even a Red Crescent ambulance,
Not even Maryam, in labor.
Certainly not a Muslim!
It wasn’t their job to save her.
I think her name was Mary –
Or Maryam, as Yussuf would say.
She died with her babe that December night
And lives in my heart every day.
We’ll all remember Mary
When December rolls around.
And the blood of her half-born baby
On the Bethlehem checkpoint ground.
But where – oh where – can I take this
This story I wish were not true?
It’s too heavy for me to carry alone.
So here. Let her rest with you, too.
what a poem!