The Palestinian Boy

The Palestinian boy
Happy his lot could've been
Chasing ball
Carefree under the open skies
Dreaming in colors
And of the scent of roses.

But there are no bouquets for this boy
Just coffins and the stench of blood.
At every twist and turn a blockade slaps him in the face...
his ball might just land in a new settler's porch...

In his homeland a detainee
the Palestinian boy is ten-fold older than his tender age.
Yeah, his face is smooth but his heart is folded in grief.
He was there when his home caved in
And his baby sister paved the ruins
And is haunted forever by his Dad's mangled body.
His Mom's shrieks all he hears of music
A cry for help the only song he knows.

He is the product of a world sans conscience;
A sad soul stretched to the limit.
Is it a sin to want to smell my rose? he asks
A crime to call what's mine, mine?
Does torturing me increase the world's joy?
Will the earth cleave asunder
if I till my portion of the soil?

@ Safi Abdi, all rights reserved.

Palestine

The story of a child
Not combat attire.

The story of a child
Disarrayed in the rain.

Columns of tanks in battle array
And a woman carrying a pitcher of the rain.

She is his mother in total disarray
Welcoming him in the sunshine rain.

Son, come drink this water from the day’s rain!
Where's it, Mama?
Cries the boy disarrayed in the rain.
My hospital leg? My hospital leg?

The woman points
To the column of tanks in battle array
Where stood their home before the morn’s rain.

The boy limps on
On a single leg
Limps he on
To find the rally on.

His father lay high in the rain
On shoulders and tears of the day’s rain
Gift-wrapped in the nation’s rain
Face high in the rain
Peace! O Peace!
How does thou lounge in this rain?

@ Safi Abdi, all rights reserved.