A Prayer for Gaza
by M.A.R. Habib
I am Gaza.
I am the poem of Gaza.
The world does not see me:
A world which does
Nothing.
And you launchers of rockets, I ask you now:
Lay down your arms, your useless arms:
See what gifts from the enemy they bring:
They rain down terror from the air;
They burn our children’s faces;
They turn our schools to rubble;
They churn our homes to dust.
And the world does nothing.
So I beg you now, you launchers of rockets,
Lay down your arms: what have they brought in
Fifty years? Nothing.
Your killing of civilians
Can bring nothing
But shame. In taking
Such life, your blame
Will burn in the eyes of God.
The powers we face are incalculable. We
Cannot win by arms. We cannot even
Win with words; the powers we face
Are endless in resource; they control
What is known and what is not known.
They control a world
Which does nothing.
You launchers of rockets, you surely know:
They will answer your terror with their terror:
They will take more lives in ten days
Than you can take in ten years.
They will blacken your skies.
They will rain down terror from the air;
They will burn our children’s faces;
They will turn our schools to rubble;
They will churn our homes to dust.
And the world will do nothing.
Lay down your rockets, your home-made guns:
Or they will take more
And more of our land. They
Will not be merciful: their soldiers laugh as
Our women are slaughtered; their settlers
Take our villages and farms;
They are not the true Jews;
Who taunt our children
Who thirst in endless queues.
While the world does nothing.
Lay down your guns, your tired rockets.
Our foes will not be merciful; so you must
Show mercy. I do not ask you to forget,
Forget the suffering, still bleeding
Through our people. I ask that
You think of your children
Of all children.
Let us sit down with our enemy.
Talk with him as though
He were our friend.
(One day we must remember: the Jews
Are our brothers, descended
From the same father Abraham.
The Jews are not our enemy, no
Matter what deeds are
Perpetrated in their name; the
True Jews of the world are friends; they
See your suffering, and they bleed
With you, ashamed
Of those who pretend to act in their name,
One day we must live with them as friends).
Let our enemy know that we will not
Strike again. Though his weapons are
Fearsome, he himself is full of fear;
Though his arms are strong, he himself is weak.
He has a nuclear power beyond our
Dreams, but still he lives in fear.
He needs to know.
He has imprisoned us
Imprisoned himself
Within a wall: the symbol of his fear.
He needs to know.
Let us use a courage higher than your rockets,
Stronger than his tanks:
Let us tear down this wall; and all walls between us.
Let us sit down, and talk. And let us spread
This message through our people: no more
Violence, no more talk of wiping out
The enemy. It is not just violent acts which bring
His violent retribution, but violent words.
Let him know that he is safe.
The greatest courage is to know
One day we must live as friends.
I am Gaza, the poem of Gaza.
I am Muslim, Christian, Palestinian and Jew.
I am you.
Give the world’s eyes a chance to see:
To see who we really are.
To see the truth.
A world which
Does nothing.
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M.A.R. HABIB, an English professor at Rutgers–Camden who revived and now advises the English Students Organization, is a scholar of literary criticism, theory, and philosophy. He is the author of five books, including two histories of literary criticism, a study of T.S. Eliot's philosophical background, and two translations of Urdu poetry. |
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