PALESTINE
A Poem by Ibtisam Barakat

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At the checkout register,
at an office-supplies store,
I am getting ready to
buy the world --
The globe that is. . .
Fifty dollars the man says,
one hundred and ninety-five countries,
all for fifty dollars!
I am thinking --
That means twenty five cents a country!
Can I give you all the money I have,
and you throw in Palestine?
Where do you want it? he asks.

Wherever there are
Palestinians.



 

Note: PALESTINE poem was born in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, when I was doing an author residency at the American School there, and did a few activities to get to know the city. At the Nabati poetry event, the Million Poet,  شاعر المليون one man I met touched my heart strongly when I told him that I am from Palestine, and he rushed to say that he is from Palestine too.

But he has never seen it! He became like a child when he asked me if Palestine is really beautiful. . . I felt as if someone asked me if life is really beautiful. I had no answer. He wanted me to describe Palestine to him in detail because I grew up there.  He wanted to know everything. He wanted the images that one carried in their heart. He said the movies and videos and pictures are not enough, and he loved to listen to people who grew up there because they have the smell of the land.. because they have breathed the air he longs to breathe too.

I wished I could give him part of my actual experience of Palestine -- the breeze in the afternoons on the high hills, the moon so orange it could have been picked from an Old Yafa grove that our grandparents speak of all the time and it squeezes the life out of them to know they cannot sit in those groves again drinking tea and watching the sea, and the red Earth filled with stones, small rocks like broken history, and in the Spring endless poppy flowers, yes endless, that push aside the stones and stand by the wild daisies and cala lilies everywhere. If I could give him but one poppy flower. But all I had is my voice and my poetry.

PALESTINE poem was first performed in Venezuela at the World Poetry Conference, 2009. I opened with it on the first day, and closed with it on the final day. I performed it in Arabic and in English as an interpreter also offered it in Spanish. Suddenly it became easy for Palestine to exist because someone else was echoing my voice. I took a globe with me on stage!

HERE, To you Palestinian man in Abu Dhabi, and to all of the Palestinians everywhere, and to anyone who feels that they cannot reach home for some reason.. This poem is home for you too.

The painting-image, is by Ibtisam Barakat also. The painting of Palestine was born in 2012, three years after the poem, and will be published in Arab World Geographer 2013.