Wandering in nature
under the cold rain
With only a thin shirt on his back
He knew the local names
of every miniature plant
he pointed out: "That's medicine"
"That's poison"
His nose was pink
and his laughter was defiant
"We are tough, Habibi!"
And yes, I was sure that
we are the mountains
and the caves we once inhabited
The ruins of palaces we once built
The cities we conquered
The blood of empires
we toppled
We are the world, at a glance
And yes, we are a made-up nation
A nation made up of a thousand other nations
that is hard to trace how it came
into existence
But no, we are not a false nation
We are both Goliath and David in unison
The effete heart in face of beauty
We are the Ancient Peoples of the Sea,
The lost tribe in the desert,
We are the Hebrew alphabets
Which were confiscated from us
the Palestinian Aramaic we once spoke,
The distinct Levantine dialect we currently use,
We are the entire history
of "Gentiles and Jews",
the one we are told is no longer ours
We are the undamaged population of Jesus
The fresh waters of the Jordan,
We were his disciples
and his accomplices in treason
We are a solitary olive tree we call "Roman"
yet we are not sure when we planted it
We are the carob-colored hair,
the red beard,
the sun-kissed skin
We are the Romans who roamed the same streets
since the dawn of inscribed history
We are the Philistine language we misplaced
the Hebrew language- that no one speaks
Yet fondly listen to its beats
We use the same old slingshot
and the small rock
that has probably been used
for the same purpose
(to shoot)
Since the time we cursed ourselves
in our own bible
The whistles we still communicate by
and call it "the language of the birds"
We are the "Arabs" who came in
thirsty and tired,
who thought our
Jerusalem apples
were a piece of heaven,
and we thought their heaven
was the one we have preached about forever
We are an ancient lone Greek monastery
A Muslim allegiance
A communist intellectual we expropriated
from our homes
A sycamore fig tree we brought back from Egypt
A cumin seed that flavors our meals
The tender hand of a street-vender
A Canaanite deity we never met
Yet still, we call our villages by its name
A fig tree we planted
ten thousand years ago
but we ended up uprooting it when
It desecrated the sanctity of the sun
Over our limestone-paved porch
With its leafy branches
It tumbled like a giant,
But Goliath never fell
under the cold rain
With only a thin shirt on his back
He knew the local names
of every miniature plant
he pointed out: "That's medicine"
"That's poison"
His nose was pink
and his laughter was defiant
"We are tough, Habibi!"
And yes, I was sure that
we are the mountains
and the caves we once inhabited
The ruins of palaces we once built
The cities we conquered
The blood of empires
we toppled
We are the world, at a glance
And yes, we are a made-up nation
A nation made up of a thousand other nations
that is hard to trace how it came
into existence
But no, we are not a false nation
We are both Goliath and David in unison
The effete heart in face of beauty
We are the Ancient Peoples of the Sea,
The lost tribe in the desert,
We are the Hebrew alphabets
Which were confiscated from us
the Palestinian Aramaic we once spoke,
The distinct Levantine dialect we currently use,
We are the entire history
of "Gentiles and Jews",
the one we are told is no longer ours
We are the undamaged population of Jesus
The fresh waters of the Jordan,
We were his disciples
and his accomplices in treason
We are a solitary olive tree we call "Roman"
yet we are not sure when we planted it
We are the carob-colored hair,
the red beard,
the sun-kissed skin
We are the Romans who roamed the same streets
since the dawn of inscribed history
We are the Philistine language we misplaced
the Hebrew language- that no one speaks
Yet fondly listen to its beats
We use the same old slingshot
and the small rock
that has probably been used
for the same purpose
(to shoot)
Since the time we cursed ourselves
in our own bible
The whistles we still communicate by
and call it "the language of the birds"
We are the "Arabs" who came in
thirsty and tired,
who thought our
Jerusalem apples
were a piece of heaven,
and we thought their heaven
was the one we have preached about forever
We are an ancient lone Greek monastery
A Muslim allegiance
A communist intellectual we expropriated
from our homes
A sycamore fig tree we brought back from Egypt
A cumin seed that flavors our meals
The tender hand of a street-vender
A Canaanite deity we never met
Yet still, we call our villages by its name
A fig tree we planted
ten thousand years ago
but we ended up uprooting it when
It desecrated the sanctity of the sun
Over our limestone-paved porch
With its leafy branches
It tumbled like a giant,
But Goliath never fell
A relief from an ancient Egyptian temple showing two captive Philistine warriors with their distinct head-piece or hair-do.
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