By Siphokazi Jonas
Again, this November’s harvest wastes in the sun and aftermath of smoke.
The metal vats which swell with olive oil in these seasons are brimming with lamentation.
Again, bloodlines are uprooted to plant settlers, and those
who remain are forced to wait for a chance to start over,
again. When there are too many names to recite in prayer, they are converted
into numbers, this is how history scales the weight of genocide.
Again, a child, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a cousin, a teacher,
a fiancé, a student, a doctor, a journalist, a filmmaker are martyred into immortality.
Again, the fragrance of musk rises from the rubble out of Gaza’s body
and heralds the promise of Jannah. But this time, it comes with changing winds:
beyond the Mediterranean a tide of Safi al-Din al Hili’s words spills across borders,
“White are our deeds, Black are our battles, Green are our fields, Red are our swords.”
The millions who have felt the press of other histories on their bodies,
eyes heavy with witness, hoist their voices to the sky in these colours.
Teach us the folk songs you sing at harvesttime, they say, we will turn our streets
into olive groves engorged with memories of you. We have already refused to forget you.
Show us how to bake the bread your grandmothers broke for you under the shade
of generations-old trees. We will dip it into a river of oil as we speak your names, and
douse the heat of war with watermelon tears. We will braid keffiyeh like nets to catch the smoke above your head Palestine. Teach us to dance the dabke while we wait with you
for the 20 years a new olive tree needs to take root and another 20 to bear fruit
out of the land that has refined your grief and faith into abundant medicine, again.
IOL