a guide by Samah Fadil
Step 1
Forget to feed the chrysalis as it forms. Once the transformation is complete, protect the butterfly as it crawls out of its cocoon by holding on to its wings gently, for it not …
poetry
How to Outlive a Colonizer
…
Soldier On
On this walk
Around my house
In Amman
Everything
Reminds me of death.
After hours of scrolling past images and footage of blood and destruction and death
Everything
Reminds me of death.
The naked November trees,
The gray structure of …
Of Seasons and Souls
Once upon a time, the holy land would sing sweet melodies under the soothing heat of
the sky’s golden disk – signaling the start of this near-sacred season
They ask you about the harvest –
Al-Hasaad –
A word this …
Ecology of My Own
“A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a
silent mournful expanse…. a desolation….” – this is of Palestine by Mark Twain, from his
book The Innocents Abroad, written in 1869.
Dear Mr. …
The Reasons I Do
My father worries I’ll be captured
on photo1 or video and remembered fondly2
by a state3 or drones or the collection of generals and agents4
who can and who may one day seek to snatch me…
exit wounds / the rage of the diaspora
exit wounds
I wasn’t there
when my grandparents
were shuffled, guns to their backs,
into a catastrophe they wouldn’t see the end of.
I wasn’t there
when my father held
a handgun to his temple & pulled
the trigger, loosing …
The Land and Eve
The Land was Eden, and I was Eve
And the forbidden fruit hung there,
like a seductive sin
a godless crime
and an unforgivable wish
I heard the snake hissing in my ear,
“Leave,
Go and live
a better life.”…
Where Doves Fly
Goodbye, O mourning one
I am to fly home and leave
you here with your thoughts and
sorrows.
I will be sure to kiss the skies,
nest on the olive trees
and feast from our land.
Goodbye, O free one,…
Palestinian Men like Thorns
You call a rose beautiful,
But vilify its thorns like you do Palestinian men
You call daisies weeds and pluck each petal
saying,
He loves me, he loves me not
Each daisy a Palestinian child at its yellow core,
Like …
