Posted on January 8, 2022 by Nahida Exiled Palestinian
My uncle sent me this video of our beloved village of Beit Iksa, so I wrote
You touched me deeply, dear uncle I asked my tears How breathtakingly beautiful this part of earth is! How deep is her pain and how profound is her sorrow!
When I saw her, as if my eyesight was lost The mind wandered like a terrified motherless filly that doesn’t know the way Heart stopped beating Soul melted, limbs trembled Guts churned, breath taken away
Deep love drowned in excruciating pain Overwhelming joy faded away into eternal sadness I no longer know who I am, where I came from or where am I going
Do I cry of euphoria or laugh of sorrow and grief? The strings of my soul intermingled with her soil You wouldn’t know anymore, which was me or which was her
Sun stood still and earth is no longer revolving Overwhelmed with nostalgia Childhood love erupted without warning The yearning of youth in my being set ablaze Weaving agony in my grieving heart I thought I had buried years ago
However, Laws and Truth of God, can never be changed, forever prevail From the darkness of agony shines the dawn of glory and hope From the bitterness of sorrow, the sweetness of patience and gratitude, enjoyed forevermore
“The earth will gleam with the Light of its Lord, and the Records shall be set up, and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought forward: and a just decision pronounced between them; and they will not be wronged (in the least).”
Would a rope tightened to God be ever cut off? Does a heart connected to the Most Loving Sublime, would ever know despondency or despair? Would a Divine promise from the Most Merciful ever be broken?
God-forbid… No way!
“when the second of the warnings will come to pass, We will raise up a people that they may disgrace your faces and may enter the Mosque as they entered it the first time, and that they may destroy with utter destruction whatsoever extreme power/ hegemony, you may have achieved/accumulated”
Posted on June 13, 2020 by Nahida Exiled Palestinian
ما اروع حب الارض
❤️
حب الارض عبادة فهو يعمر القلب بالشكر والامتنان ويطلق اللسان بالذكر والحمد ويسمو بالروح الى مراتب القرب والعرفان ❤️
حب الارض مقاومة
فهو يرد على من يريدون تدمير الحياة باعتناق الحياة وغرسها والعناية بها حتى تثمر وتزهر
حب الارض شفاء للجسد والعقل والقلب والروح
❤️❤️
How splendid love of the land is !
Loving the land is a prayer, it fills the heart with grace and gratitude, moves the tongue with songs, prayers and praise, and elevates the soul in awareness and intimacy ❤️
Love the land is resistance !
It is a practical response to those who want to destroy life; by embracing, planting and caring for life until it yields and blooms
Love of the earth is a therapy and healing for body, mind, heart and soul
Posted on April 14, 2020 by Nahida Exiled Palestinian
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لاجئ مزمن، زمهرير الغربة القارس يزجك في اعماق الاماني الندية بحثا في ثنايا ذاكرتك المنهكة المفعمة بالحنين عن بعضك الذي اضعته ذات ليلة دامعة
تحاول بلهفة مرتجفة ان ترسم معالم زمن مضى وتلون وجوها مسح تقاطيعها ألم دفين، فتزرع زعترا اخضرفي غير موسمه ولا زمانه ولا مكانه، في بلاد بعيدة وبين شعوب غريبة لا تعرف للزعتر اسما ولا رسما ولا طعما
تترفق وانت تقطف وريقاته الغضة عسى بعطره ان يطير بك الى حاكورة بيت عتيق على سفح الجبل، حيث يرقد الحسون في عشه ويغفو السنونوعلى غصن شجرة لوز
تبني بيديك طابونا من الطين، عسى ان تحملك رائحة خبزه الى زمن جميل كان وما عاد او الى حضن جدة دافئ، وتترقرق جداول الامل المعجونة بالالم، دموع فرح حزين ويخال لك كأنما بال(طين) قد استرجعت بعضا من فلسطين
وتعجن وتخبز وتحشو فطائر الزعتر في بلاد العجم التي ما اعترفت يوما بك كتاريخ او جغرافيا او حقوق او حضارة ولسان حالك يقول لهم آه لو تعلمون، لرأيتم الثرى يباهي الثريا ان داسته اقدام اجدادي، فترد الثريا بل الفخر لي ان اخلاقهم علت عليّا
Posted on April 14, 2020 by Nahida Exiled Palestinian
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A chronic refugee, the bitter exhausting exile throws you into the depths of dewy dreamy aspirations. You ran frantically searching for you between the folds of your exhausted, nostalgic memories, which you’ve lost once upon a tearful night.
With trembling eagerness, you try to trace the features of a time long gone, and paint faces that had lost its miens, expressions and demeanor, to a deeply buried pain.
You sow za’ater seeds, during the wrong season, wrong time and wrong place, in faraway lands, amidst strangers who do not know its name, colour, scent or flavour.
You tenderly pick its budding leaves, hoping that its perfume would fly you away to a childhood orchard with an ancient house at the foothills, where a goldfinch dozed off in its nest, and a swallow slumbered on a almond tree branch.
You lovingly build a taboon, a clay oven, with your bare hands, hoping that the aroma of its bread would carry you away one day, to a distant land and a beautiful time which once was, never to return, or rock you to sleep, in the warm arms of your grandmother.
Springs of hope plaited with pain, gush through your anguished soul. Tears of grieving joy flow, so much so that for a moment, you would imagine that with a lump of terracotta clay between your fingers, a chunk of Palestine had been liberated.
Kneading, rolling, baking and stuffing za’ater pies in the land of Balfour, which has never recognized you, your history, your geography, your rights, your humanity or your civilization.
You scream silently: O you, if only you knew ! You would have seen the soil of my homeland boasting before the stars, that my ancestors had meandered over it. With a huge grin, the stars would respond: glory is all mine for their love, hospitality and kindness have surpassed my lofty skies.
Posted on August 15, 2019 by Nahida Exiled Palestinian
Author Issa Issa Qawasmi, translation Nahida Izzat
Seventy years on, the heart is still loaded with the same question, memory or amnesia?
Every Jerusalemite is born deeply involved in belonging,
A forbidden love that turns pulse into shrapnel,
A love carrying its identity from the wound of the place,
A love transparent, as a woman’s body, does not need much of beauty frills,
A love suffice for the universe and life without a question,
A love that relinquishes its thirst from the essence of a mirage,
A love which has no need for the wisdom of distant far away sister-cities, captured in the trap of humiliation and disgrace,
A love that passionately safeguards holiness, history, geography and reasons for survival,
A love overflowing between two wars, such as a bird nesting between Earth and the Sky,
A love, free, outside coincidence, like astonishment before the door of the Resurrection,
A love of which facts, evidence and the patience of enemies got exhausted,
A love that does not tire of interpreting love,
A love against treason or amnesia,
A love that resembles Jerusalem.
On the fringes of my heart, I chose to love you,
Everything about you is lovable
Forgive me if the age of my pulse is short,
I love you when a cloud injures me,
and when the road does not lead me to you,
I love you if a moon rises in your palm and if your intimacy becomes hell,
I love you as I ran out of me to you, as the narcissus of your eyes brought me as a stranger,
I love you when I am alone, the heart left with nothing but prayer and nostalgia,
I forget you, to get closer to you,
I forget you, for in you I recover everything I ever lost.
بقلم الاديب المقدسي عيسى القواسمي وترجمة ناهدة عزت
سبعون عاما والقلب لا زال محملا بذات السؤال ، الذاكرة أم النسيان ؟كل مقدسي يولد متورطآ بالإنتماء ، حب محرم يحول النبض الى شظايا ، حب يحمل هويته من جرح المكان ، حب شفاف كجسد إمرأة لا يحتاج الى الكثير من رتوش الجمال ، حب يكفي الكون والعمر دون سؤال ، حب يروي عطشه من جوهر السراب ، حب لا يحتاج الى حكمة المدن الشقيقة البعيدة النائية الواقعة في فخ الذل والهوان ، حب ينتصر للقداسة والتاريخ والجغرافيا وأسباب البقاء ، حب فاض بين حربين مثل طير صنع أيكه بين الأرض والسماء ، حب حر خارج الصدفة كالدهشة أمام باب القيامة ، حب ضجرت منه الحقائق والبراهين وصبر الأعداء ، حب لا يتعب من تفسير الحب ، حب يشبه القدس ، حب ضد الخيانة أو النسيان
على هامش قلبي ، إخترت أن أحبك ، فكل ما فيك يحب … وأغفري لي إن كان عمر النبض قصير ، أحبك حين تجرحني غيمة ولا تصوبني إليك الطريق ، أحبك إن إرتفع قمر في كفك وصار وصالك جحيم ، أحبك إذ خرجت مني إليك وأعادني نرجس عينيك كالغريب ، أحبك حين أترك وحيدآ ولا يمتلك القلب سوى صلاة وحنين . وأنساك لأقترب منك ، أنساك فبك كل ما أضعت أستعيد .
Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms.. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Poetry for Palestine 