I have been overwhelmed with learning, feeling, raging, and mourning about the state of the world. Stuck in the freeze mode of powerlessness, we watch the absolute destruction of a people; reminiscent of the words of the advisors to the infamous fascist house painter, of the final solution. Psychopaths run nations, corporations, militaries ,and institutions of the media and “higher learning”. The opposition movement to the genocide in Gaza is growing because of the enormity and viciousness of the IDF and the Netanyahu administration.

I am sharing a couple of poems by Palestinian writers. In these times when poetry has not become a refuge from the news, but rather the site of the same battles, it has become a battle cry for love, compassion, humanity and mercy. I share marigolds, a symbol of the Day of the Dead in Mexican culture.

 

Running Orders
     
by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

They call us now,
before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza?
They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war-time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.

Tuffaha’s explanation:
(During Israel’s operation Protective Edge which killed over 2000 civilians) I participated in weekly protests in my city. But with each passing hour, with each attack more ferocious than the one before, I felt my words withering away. Among the many news reports that I watched, I remember an interview with a woman who described a phone call that she and her neighbors had received from the Israeli military. “They call us now” she said. The irony of a phone call announcing an impending death from which there was no chance of escape was a glowing ember inside her words. For days and nights those words played over and over in my head. And I began to write.

If you still retain compassion and humanity as central values, I invite you to join me in the boycott of the following companies and to remember my small poem written many years ago on the occasion of a previous attack on Gaza. One holocaust must not beget another. We are only the small people, but even ants can accomplish great things working together. The barcode 871 is also used for Israeli products. Many of these companies may not be Israeli owned but have substantial investment in the war machine and consumer lifestyle of that country.

Boycott Poem for Palestine

729 is the number of the crime
committed by Israel against Palestine
It starts of the bar code; you know, those bars:
bars on houses, schools, clinics and cars
bars on passports and on olive trees
bars on Palestine and on you and me.

729 is a number you can’t forget
when you sit numbed out by your TV set:
solidarity with Gaza is up to you
avoid 729 is what you can do.