Naomi Shihab Nye: To Netanyahu

My Palestinian father named his donkey after you.

Yahu—everyone thought it was for the Internet,

but he knew. Now I think he insulted the donkey.

.

The donkey was friends with a horse, in a field.

They didn’t have much, but they shared it.

Pink flowers in spring—neither of them

tried to rule the field.

.

Your army just bombed a U.N. center for refugees.

Gaza, imprisoned in poverty for decades—

take that! More blood for supper.

.

Years since my father died,

his donkey still stands quietly

gazing from enormous eyes,

hanging his humble head.

“To Netanyahu” from The Tiny Journalist copyright 2019 by Naomi Shihab Nye, BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.

The Tiny Journalist can be ordered by clicking here.

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7 comments on “Naomi Shihab Nye: To Netanyahu”

margo berdeshevsky
November 16, 2023

so dry it hurts!! as it must , alas, as it does. xx, margo

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Randy Markey
August 22, 2019

Oh Naomi….so beautiful so sad…so funny (in a sad and sad way). Can’t wait to see you. Aziz would be so proud…of course…and I agree…the donkey was..how you say…over named…x

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Dr Jenny Te Paa Daniel (Aotearoa, New Zealand).
August 21, 2019

Brilliant, beautiful, poignant, your Dad sounds like mine!!

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Will
August 19, 2019

so evocative, with tears and hope both from the heart

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chucktaylorauthor
August 16, 2019

A sad, but great, poem.

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jfrobb
August 16, 2019

Help! Even worse, your comment system is not registering for Naomi Shihab Nye’s (sadly) just rightpoem. Please fix this so we can ‘vote’ w/ our clicks. – JRobb

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- Vox Populi
  August 16, 2019
  
  The “like” button works. Have you signed in at WordPress?
  
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This entry was posted on August 16, 2019 by Vox Populi in Humor and Satire, Most Popular, Opinion Leaders, Poetry, Social Justice, War and Peace and tagged Everyday Politics of Confinement in Palestine, Israeli occupation, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye, Naomi Shihab Nye reads "One Boy Told Me", Netanyahu, Non-violent resistence against Israel in Palestine, To Netanyahu, Trees Gossip with the Birds, UN partition of Palestine.

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