For the quietest quiet

You might have read the poems. For over a year, they have been shared and quoted widely. You might have read Refaat Al Areer’s prophetic If I must die: “If I must die / let it bring hope / let it be a tale.” Or you might know by heart Khaled Juma’s O rascal children of Gaza: “Come back – / And scream as you want, / And break all the vases, / Steal all the flowers, / Come back, / Just come back…” Or I wish children didn’t die by Ghassan Kanafani: And when their parents would ask / them “Where were you?” / They would say / “We were playing in the clouds.” And you, poet, you might have thought of Marwan Makhoul’s verse: “In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political / I must listen to the birds / and in order to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent.” So many more. Witnessing, reporting, imploring, guiding, teaching us how to find words for despair and loss and courage and fear and memory and home.

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And last month came Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha. A book you can take into your quietest quiet. He has a poem for every kind of pain, every possible hope, every horror, every experience — marinated in years of conflict. You might read On your knees holding your breath, or My son throws a blanket over my daughter with a heavy heart, or Mothers and Mulberry Tree with great sadness. Or if, like me, it is the unexpected that moves you most, then you might want to look for the note below A test by a Gazan child that says “hand the test to any Palestinian child and they will be able to grade it for you.”

This poet has a simple, conversational style of writing that pulls the reader in, but his poems are power-packed. In Right or Left Abu Toha writes: “It is a bone / from her arm. / Right or left? / It does not matter / as long as we cannot / find the henna / from her neighbors’ wedding / on her skin, / or the ink / from a school pen / on a little index finger.”

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Last week I read a poem that I wrote in October, at an open mic hosted by a local bookstore.

This poem has no title.

How quickly horror sheds its
vowels and consonants and
becomes accepted. Oh the
shield of othering! Oh the
seduction of power and self!
A year is not enough to get
used to blood and shredded
bodies and shattered homes.
What were we? What have
we become? We respond
to impunity with inanity.
We respond to devastation
with deflection. How many
children have to be broken
and bruised and burnt and
buried before the universe
will stop its mindless
churning? Every childhood
story, every myth, every
fable was about goodness
prevailing, about kindness
winning: every story, every
myth, every fable lied. The
universe is inside out. The
wolf ate Red Riding Hood.
The step-sister married the
prince. Rapunzel’s tower
was bombed and she is
still — under the rubble.

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May 2025 be kind. #Poetry