Palestine

We burn with stars at night
calculating how many drafts
it would take
to get the poem right
 
How it could capture and transfer
the weight of dirty water buckets
across shoulders of women
balancing rubble each morning
 
Or the shrapnel of wind
cutting through the skin
of displaced families
with nowhere to go
 
We stare down reason
like a vulture, ready for its death
go for its throat
swallow every bloody decision
yet to come
 
We wade through ghosts
knowing the ground beneath our feet
could disappear at any moment
 
No matter how important it is
self-care doesn’t exist
in parts of the world
conjoined with survival
 
History weaves its thread
like Ariadne through our bones,
so we brave the charge
of rising as spirits from tombs
of senselessness
 
There’s a reason poetry
continues to be written
Yet, there’s no amount of editing
that could entomb first-hand suffering
 
Sometimes we poets carry the weight
of change across our shoulders
giving voice to those silenced
spell-casting that their souls
rest in peace
 
When the ritual is done
some will say, “Thank you
for understanding”
 
But we don’t understand
what we haven’t experienced
like the fire of burning stars

And the only voices worth anything
will be from the dead
not the living
~