Rage
It wasn't you they saw on the television screen, it wasn't you
as they filmed you coming out crumbled from the rubble,
who then was applauding and clamoring for death?
This is what war makes you: it takes your skin off and gives
you a tent, and like a crumpled piece of paper, it throws
your home out with the trash—ut plucks your pink heart
and plants gunpowder stones, no wheat fields gleam in
your eyes from now on, no hills of olive groves dream
to be picked, no bunch of kids play on your shoulders,
no grass of remembrance sits with you in the sunset
of the house, nothing here or there except limitless
rage, boiling over to the end of time and distance,
it was not you; it was not a stream of water, it was
a wolf snarling underneath the rubble, wanting
to rip the flesh of these tanks with its teeth.
March 13, 2024
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Nasser Rabah
Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece
Translated from the Arabic by
Ammiel Alcalay, Emna Zghal, Khaled Al-Hilli
City Lights Books, 2025
