Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Hiba Abu Nada: I Grant You Refuge
1.
I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocket
from the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.
I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones who
change the rocket’s course
before it lands
with their smiles.
2.
I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones now asleep like chicks in a nest.
They don’t walk in their sleep toward dreams.
They know death lurks outside the house.
Their mothers’ tears are now doves
following them, trailing behind
every coffin.
3.
I grant the father refuge,
the little ones’ father who holds the house upright
when it tilts after the bombs.
He implores the moment of death:
“Have mercy. Spare me a little while.
For their sake, I’ve learned to love my life.
Grant them a death
as beautiful as they are.”
4.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and death,
refuge in the glory of our siege,
here in the belly of the whale.
Our streets exalt God with every bomb.
They pray for the mosques and the houses.
And every time the bombing begins in the North,
our supplications rise in the South.
5.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and suffering.
With words of sacred scripture
I shield the oranges from the sting of phosphorous
and the shades of cloud from the smog.
I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.
~~~~
Translated by Huda Fakhreddine
Hiba Abu Nada was a novelist, poet, and educator. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Dead won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She wrote this poem on Oct. 10th, 2023, and she was killed in her home ten days later in south Gaza by an Israeli raid. She was 32 years old.
Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer, a translator, and the author of several scholarly books.
Included in Vox Populi for noncommercial educational purposes only.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
So many special lives killed as a people extol and enjoy their genocidal actions while politicians and those who know little pontificate dribble to allow this crime against humanity, against all of us, to continue. I am horrified as I try to find words to have it end. This poem is so beautiful and is such a poignant legacy. Why do so few understand what is happening Why do so few do anything? Thank you for publishing this powerful work.
LikeLike
My heart breaks every day from news of so many lives lost.
LikeLike
What a beautiful soul. My heart aches.
LikeLike
Mine too…
LikeLike
No words. And it’s beginning in the West Bank too. Netanyahu wants all of what supposedly was once ‘the promised land’ (it was promised if the people were people of kindness and good deeds) for Israel. And no ‘others’ allowed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This poem and its circumstances are nearly too much to bear.
No, the circumstances are more than anyone should have had to bear and are still experiencing.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I think it is important we listen and acknowledge the witnessing, especially when it is rendered into poetry.
>
LikeLiked by 4 people
Absolutely, Michael.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks to Vox Populi for honoring Hiba Abu Nada, and for sharing her poem, with its hope that one day devastation will end, justice can prevail, and joy and refuge return
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks, Jim.
>
LikeLiked by 2 people
I will remember Hiba Abu Nada.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A brilliant light snuffed out.
>
LikeLiked by 3 people