There are ten days to go before the Portsmouth Performers for Palestine event and tickets are still available. In advance of the event, which is brought to you in association with Star & Crescent, the University of Portsmouth, the Universities of Sanctuary and Unite the Union, we present a poem by S&C regular contributor Paul Valentine, who will be appearing on the night.
Gaza
She walks silently through the burnt rubble
Wearing an olive leaf Hijab to symbolise
Strength, resilience and perseverance:
To forgo the wickedness of those
Who set their hate against those whose land it was,
Of which only those remain who lost loved ones
On that ghastly night.
She stays to commune with her nearest, now furthest,
To search for some sense, in the idiocy of that moment
And now lives between two worlds – one dead,
The other powerless to be born, and so she spends her time
Hovering both; like a hummingbird without a song.
But in her heart, she knows, as she waits for the dead grass to green,
As metaphor for all else; for new life springs from death, doesn’t it?
Just as green shoots emerge from the parched rancid blackness.
The very finest line from despair and mental anguish –
To hope – wherein lies the emergence of a new dignity.
A dignity that binds all hate.
-And she is there now!
Her form an essential grace: the words very meaning –
From the protection a mother camel gives her young:
She would gladly die saving her own, yet she had no chance
So, she dies anew each new day given to re-live that atrocity.
There is no religion here now, for they look to her,
And though she is now redeemed through fire – she lives elsewhere,
Often thinking; ‘If only men gave birth, life would be so different!’
Thank you!
You can see Paul and others perform on June 11th. Book free tickets for the event here.
Image courtesy of Portsmouth Performers for Palestine.
