The following is a selection from our monthly poetry series BEIT. Mondoweiss recognizes and values the power of poetry to help us re-imagine our perceptions, ideas, and possibilities for the world.
To learn more about BEIT and submit poetry please visit here.
I never met Grandfather, but I can see him
close to a well in Yaffa. The forehead he’s wiping
is a glittering, wrinkled map of the past.
His olive-wood cane leans
against an orange tree.
I can see birds the colour of earth
when it rains
harvest oranges, pile them
on roofs of houses
in the refugee camp.
Where have you been? Grandfather asks me,
his voice
weary as if
plowing the thick, muddy
soil of language.
My arms are down, too tired to lift
even to say hi.
I’ve been pulling up buckets of water
from the Camp’s well,
searching for words
for my epic.
My grandfather stands still close to the well.
He never left it, even after the Nakba,
even after death.
His hands pour water
down into the well.
In the refugee camp,
where Land is strewn with
debris, where air chokes with rage,
my harvest is yet to arrive,
my seeds only sprout on this page.
Touches the soul. So many “wells”, so many “grandfathers” out there, waiting and standing guard. And so so many grandsons under the wide sky, defying history and wanting to be that “olive wood cane”.