Like a Cloud, We Travel

Wiped out by every wind over Gaza,
we are scattered on this earth,
footsteps in the desert.

We do not, or cannot, know
when and how to return
to the homes
our ancestors loved
for centuries.

Like clouds,
we try to give shade and rain:
the best we can.

But deep down, we do not know
whether we even belong
to where we happen to exist.

Like clouds,
we might visit our homes
without knowing that they still are
ours.

Invaders have changed much
of our landscape,
much or our lives.

--- Mosab Abu Toha

"Our Country is a Graveyard"

"Gentlemen, you have transformed
our country into a graveyard
You have planted bullets in our heads,
and organized massacres
Gentlemen, nothing passes like that
without account
All that you have done
to our people is
registered in notebooks".

---  Tawfiq Ziyad

I have a country

I have a country
it's invisible
it has no flags
or moonlight
or river
or mountain
or clouds
to understand heaven
or flames
to take desire apart
but in the sadness of its map
there's the answer we need.

--- Nathalie Handal, "Everyday"