Hiraeth
(n.) A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the grief for the lost places of your past.
The Israeli-Palestinian region has been in a constant state of turmoil since the inception of the Israeli State in 1948. Millions have been displaced, thousands murdered and hundreds continue to die at the borders every day. In this particular poem, I alternate between the Palestinian and Israeli points of view to shed light on their common grief.
No matter that our sun rises
On barbed wire and concrete walls
No matter that our sun rose
On Aushwitz gates and burnished names
No matter that our religion equals
identity at checkpoints
No matter that our religion equaled
identity at Borders
No matter that in seventy years of settlements
Home has disappeared
No matter that for hundreds before the seventy
Home was just a word
No matter that my grandfather
was shot in Jerusalem
No matter that my grandmother
never reached Jerusalem
No matter that raining bullets
don’t pick sides
No matter that all our wounded
bleed red bright
Because,
No matter what we’ve lost
You and I are the same.
H
Hiraeth
