Poetry for Palestine

rally in New Plymouth, New Zealand

This past year plus I found it difficult to think or write about anything, but Palestine. ​

I felt silly and sometimes even ashamed writing little poems about a genocide that was being live-streamed from my phone and funded by my government. Around this time last year, some of them started making their way around social media. A couple took off in a surprising way and I started seeing them pop up in very unexpected and far away places. 

I never pretended my poems were helping anyone (except maybe myself). Certainly nobody in Gaza. But in spite of that, there was something overwhelming about seeing my words appear all over the world. I felt gross finding any of it meaningful. Because the thought of having any good feelings about anything even remotely connected to genocide is repugnant. 

But after sorting through that guilt and discomfort, I realized it was ok to find meaning in this. Because it wasn’t about me. It was about the experience of connection and solidarity with people from across the globe–people who were similarly moved, outraged, and heartbroken about what we were witnessing. 

When something I wrote in my grief-filled bedroom in Portland, Oregon was being shared at a candlelight vigil for Palestine in Ireland, hand-written on a protest sign in New Zealand or read at a Shabbat for Palestine event in Capetown, South Africa. it felt good, not because people liked "my" poems, not because I was getting recognition, but because people resonated with the message. Suddenly the world felt smaller and more hopeful. I felt threads of love and solidarity connecting us across many oceans. In an incredibly dark time, it felt like a light. 

seen on a wall in Barcelona, Spain

Over a year has passed. Israel is as brutal and relentless as ever. The United States is as complicit as ever. The amount of lives stolen and destruction caused is shattering. And there is still no end in sight. It feels so bleak. But it helps to remember all the people flooding the streets from all corners of the world. People who believe in liberation and are willing to stand up for what's right.