Uprootings (Poem)

 Uprootings

1

 

Ungloved hands once plucked ripe olives,

Palestinian symbol of resilience and pride.

They harvest now no more than branch

and bone, sprayed hectares amid grove fires.

 

2

 

In Khan Younis, beyond the border fence,

no one dances dabka. In Nablus, a farmer

hugs her tree, and cries; another watches,

his grape vines crushed, his fingers broken.

 

3

 

A city center's oil spills. A boy's toy

plane soars from a concrete balcony

just seconds before the blast

of a white phosphorus bomb.

 

4

 

Love of the land, for the land:

even the natural history of the soil

is denied, crops confined behind iron

gates, earth mounds, secure checkpoints.