Poems.

Poems.

Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi'


                 ONLY THROUGH YOUR LOVE CAN WE SURVIVE
                         [September 17, 2001]

    To the children who lost their parents in the tragic attacks on
                           USA on 9/11/2001

                      I fix my gaze on your eyes,
              Trying to fathom the depth of your anguish
                     And the extent of your pain.

           When your parents kissed you goodbye that morning
     It never crossed your minds that you would never meet again;

        Buried under the rubble, the bodies of your loved ones
                  Have dotted our emotional landscape
           And have made you closer to our hearts than ever.

    Your pain has thrown us into the unspoken pain of the millions
        Of suffering children around the world, JUST like you.

    We feel as though our raison d'etre, foundation, and identity,
                   Has been shattered beyond belief
             However, your beautiful and sad eyes give us
                 A glimmer of light, hope, and anchor;
           We tread the path of agony, this time, not alone,
                        But in unison with you;
               We surrender ourselves completely to you,
You have become our guide, just like the SAGE in Dante's Divine Comedy;

       You have become our teachers, giving us lessons in love,
                       Humility, and compassion;
         We see on the horizons the beginnings of a new dawn;
                    We see your compassionate smile
               Taking us by the hand in the new darkness
                        Surrounding the world.
         Your proximity to us has made life meaningful again.

             Yes, we will overcome this tragedy together;
   Yes, we will overcome it together with the suffering children of
                               the world
                         When? We do not know!
               The world seems to be poised on creating
                 More suffering for children like you
            But We are sure that one day we will overcome;
   We are sure that one day your smile will melt down all the anger
                       And hatred of this world.

                    TO THE CHILDREN OF AFGHANISTAN
                          [November 30, 2001]

             Thousands of children and orphans are roaming
                  The rugged mountains of Afghanistan
                   Moving so fast but going nowhere

               The last time they saw the sky was before
                    Bombs began to shower the earth

           Smoke and pollution have made them introspective
                 Pondering the inner soul of humanity
           Looking for answer for their never-ending plight

                     Where to hide from the bombs
             And where to hide from the sins of the world?

            In a freezing night in the Hindu-Kush mountains
            I glimpse the eyes of these wanderers by night
                          SEARCHING FOR FOOD
       And praying that no more bombs would fall on their heads

                   I feel the pain of your stomachs
                 And I become ashamed of our affluence
                  We have made you poorer than before
                 And expunged you from our conscience.

     Yet, every day we talk about the virtues of our civilization
                You are starving in front of our eyes;
     Yet we enjoy our snacks and drinks while watching you on TV.

          When we bomb the hell out of your devastated cities
                         And rugged mountains
  We claim with a big smile that we stand for mercy and human rights.

   And the cold, dreary eyes of the military experts dominate our TV
                                screens
    Telling us about the great victory we have achieved against the
                                enemy.

                    I feel the breath of the stones
                       The soul of the mountains
                          Crying out in pain
                     After waves and waves of our
                         Precision-tuned bombs
              Penetrate the subterranean depth of nature.

           The aching heart of the world saturates my being
       Lifting me away from the pain of those innocent children.

          However, I see you in the mountains of Afghanistan
                         The streets of Africa
                     In our downtowns in the USA.

             No one greets you and none bids you farewell
                 You have been deserted and alienated
 But "blessed are the aliens, since they are the heirs of the kingdom
                               of God."
 Yes, our spiritual starvation does not acknowledge your blessedness.

                           Come close to me
                        And revive my poor soul
                     You are the salt of the earth
                 You are the perfume of our existence.

                     WHO WILL WEEP FOR PALESTINE?
                           [March 11, 2002]

                 Greet our house for us; oh Stranger,
                   Kiss the stones of our backyard;
                    Embrace the leaves of our trees

           That have shed so many tears since our departure

                   And take care of the animals TOO,
                  Who have gone hungry since we left
          And do not forget to pray at the grave of my mother
         For all the strength that I have, has come from her.

                        And greet Father for us
                      In the chaos of the night;
                       In the chaos of departure
                          He was left behind
            And although we smell his presence all the time
                  He has disappeared from our sight.

               Do you remember the routes of our exile?
                           I was a baby then
     And my mother forgot me hanging in the saddle of our donkey,
                Who was shot for trying to return home.
                  Since that time I have been weeping
                  For the death of our beloved donkey
                   Who sacrificed his soul for mine.

               You, who are coming from across the seas
               Fortified with the claims of civilization
                     And the fake mission of peace
                      Take your civilization away
      And leave us to our simple ways, to our fig and olive trees
               Take your tanks out of our refugee camps
               And take your snipers out of our hearts.

                    You have been asking us to stop
                      Our anger at dispossession
                            At humiliation
                  So that our Arab Emirs and Sheikhs
                            Can gamble away
                       the wealth of the desert,
          Or that their American friends can suck out the oil
                    From the fossils of the desert;
       And get drunk in the corridors of Washington and London.

                 You can exile us, strangle our kids,
                       And murder our neighbors.
             But please be kind to our dreams, to our past
                   Do not murder our future together
         Because some day we must learn how to live together.

        We, the humiliated and the defeated, have extended our
                      hands to you all this time,
     Begging you to forgive us for the sins we had never committed
                Begging you to drink our coffee with us
                        To eat our food with us
                     And even to sleep in our bed.
                         But you have refused
        You wanted our coffee, our food and our bed without us.

         You have thrown us into the nightmare of exile, into
                          the abyss of agony.
  You have broken the feet of a whole generation, gouged their eyes,
                 And left them to bleed to their death
          And we are still begging you to be merciful; to be
                         mindful of our plight
       We still believe there is an atom of humanity within you.

         How sad is it to walk the streets of cold New England
                   Holding the Departed Ones' hands
               And how sad is it to thinic of your eyes
                        That are full of tears?
       And how tragic that I am left alone after your departure
                            from this life
                  Left alone, unprotected and unsafe!
        Please take time from your place of rest to call on me.

                Remember the aroma of Coffee coming out
                From many a chimney of sleepy villages
               And the smoke coming out of the nostrils
                Of old men and women smoking the Huka?

                       Where to we go from here?
                 When we are burdened with our tragedy
                  When we are not left in peace alone
                       Where do we go from here?

               TO THE MARTYRS OF THE JENIN REFUGEE CAMP
                           [April 11, 2002]

       Yet, we wake up to another day full of slaughter and pain
                And you are not here to give us solace
          You have left us alone in the madhouse of the world
             Belly-up and bleeding with tears and emotions

        Yet, I seek you, Oh God, in this darkness of the world

           And sometimes I feel you are nowhere to be found.
              I seek to lift the veil between you and me
             And I end up being suffocated by more veils.

         I belong to a defeated generation, a shy generation;
      A generation exposed to too much wind, disease, and change
         And we beseech you, Oh God, to understand our plight
           Sometimes we feel you are not there to solace us.

     Where have you gone while all of this slaughter is going on?
                         Have you taken a nap?
  Or have you decided to send your assistant to deal with the problem
                          one week too late?

       I have traveled Northward and Southward in search of you;
            And always thought I found you here in my heart
      I presumed I annihilated myself in you and have become you;
                   But you are nowhere to be found.

            I chased you with my full vigor all these years
                    I changed my identity for you;
                        I thought I became you;
                But it seems that all has been in vain
                     You are nowhere to be found.
                     I have been let down by you;
              And I am once again wandering in the world
                      Searching for a new abode.

  Since 9/11, I have been struggling to shape a new identity of mine;
 The combination Palestinian/Arab/Muslim scores zero on the TOEFL exam
                        of American Patriotism.
  After all of this struggle, how is it possible to stomach failure?
              And withdraw to the sidelines of the world;
                 To the remotest parts of Afghanistan;
         In search of solace and union with the departed ones.

                           Oh Departed Ones,
             Farewell to you with your excessive idealism
               Farewell to you with your untold stories
                Farewell to you with your broken noses
               Farewell to you with your wounded spirits
               Farewell to you with your hungry stomachs
            Farewell to you with your trampled upon graves

                           Do not forget us
                           Do not condemn us
                             Do forgive us
                          We have failed you
                    We have spoken behind your back
    We have engaged in many trivialities while you sacrificed your
                             souls for us.

      Yesterday, they stormed a huge refugee camp and killed many
                               infants;
        And here I stand perplexed, confused, angry, depressed
     I find myself in a frenzy; standing still, moving fast with a
                            purpose; eating
    Obsessively, fasting to death, praying, and traveling the high
                     corridors of the world while
   Listening to Bob Marley singing loudly in the fields of Jamaica,
                        and delivering me to my
                          Solitude with YOU.

     They killed the sweetest taste in my heart; they stabbed the
                        innocence of the world;
    Yet, we in this luxurious corner of the world still boast about
                       material possessions; how
    Many books we have written, and how many cars we have bought or
                                 sold.
    And how much money we have saved for our children's college, 15
                            years from now.

           Where are you, Oh God, in this spiritual desert?
       We beseech you to water our dry arteries with your mercy;
            To lift the many veils that have entrapped us;
                 And free us from this material world
     And unite us with the poor, the dispossessed, the humiliated,
                             and the dead.

Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi' is a professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary.