I will tell you why I love Palestine

I will tell you why I love Palestine

if only I can find the time.

You know my misfortunes

you know I’ve carried a sorrow as heavy as Mount Jarmaq

from the moment the British killed my father

for saying ‘no’

a sorrow that cannot be pushed away or cried over

which means I will not leave my bed

and there will be no food in the house for my siblings to eat.

I am ashamed of my tears, beloved, and worried that I cannot control them, so I cry on my black horse’s back

and in the council of elders

and during the wheat harvest.

You are a keeper of promises, and I know you remember each one. I still recall your laughter – graceful like a gazelle on the farm – when I said that I would build us a large two-storey house, to be filled with olives and oranges and akkoub and anemones

and that I would set aside a piece of land for you to plant your heart in; and we imagined, if your heart could be planted, how bright and beautiful its flowers would be.

We would reap a bountiful harvest. I wagered that if we gave some to the high commissioner, some to the army commander in our area, and lots and lots to the soldiers, it would allow me to go to work freely; it would set all of Palestine free!

Without spilling a drop of their blood, we will watch as they remember the eyes of the dead and the way they were killed, and you will see how kindness slays an entire army of murderers.

I will tell you why I love Palestine

but every time I try, I hear that yet another friend was killed.

I am now at a delayed funeral, ready to carry coffins on my shoulders 

and to commit the mourners’ words to memory.

I remember when I confessed my love to you; you said it was the worst way for a suitor to confess his love, and we laughed.

I am not a stone

and the rocks on my path were never easy or smooth; they made me a young man who picks flowers from the graveyard for his beloved.

All my loved ones are in the cemetery, killed by bullets and the hateful hearts of soldiers. I speculate that all the flowers adorning their graves are the dead’s way of speaking, their way of manifesting life and joy.

I love you with the passion that fills me when I must harvest all the wheat before nightfall. I love you with a freedom I only feel on horseback, when the wind plays with my scarf. And I love Palestine, because when you talk about it in your tender voice, I can smell the scent of my father.