This poem was written to mourn the thousands of people killed in Gaza and millions more whose lives still hang in the balance.
The poem references locations in Gaza as well as the Qur’an, the mu’allaqa of Imru’l-Qays, Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Silence for the Sake of Gaza,”
and Dan Heymann’s anti-apartheid song, “Weeping.”
How would it have harmed them if they had made bonds
Between peoples those of friendship and brotherhood?
It is a wound which shrieks forever and a victim
Who gropes blindly for blood-stained freedom.
-Ahmed Shawqi, Elegy for Omar Mukhtar
But as the night came round
I heard its lonely sound
It wasn’t roaring, it was weeping
-Dan Heyman
An Elegy for Gaza
Stop and pause and weep for our beloveds, their ruined campsites
Still smoking, souls, grief rising from the missiles’ firelight
Stop and weep, don’t be stingy with your tears and your sad sighs
Pour them out as a river whose springs will never run dry
Perhaps they will wash away all the flames and all the lies
And the walls and all the fear that has trapped the truth inside
From al-Jabaliya’s tents and the ruins of Beit Hanoun
Down the road of al-Rasheed, cats and sheep cry for the moon
And the moon herself’s wasted, scarred and charred by what she’s seen
And the caught fish look around at the carnage in pity
The white stars fall from blue skies, in a milky way of tears
From the blue stars on the white, what they do from hate and fear
Grief has blanched the black eyes white, and burned all the dark hair grey
The white sea has been stained red, hope’s green sprouts hidden away
This old wound badly bandaged, will bleed out another way
Annexed pretexts strike, perplexed, dark hearts rise on darker days
They have stolen the water, they’ve even stolen the tears
And they’ve run off with the light and then, worse, stolen the years
“A life for a life,” it’s said, “an eye for an eye,” blind, clear
But it’s multiplied instead, and they now want all the ears
Rules of gold have overruled our golden rule’s gentle hold
Living sacrifices for armories bought, shipped, and sold
Ask the Maya and the Sioux, the Mau Mau and Herero
Ask Warsaw and Watts’ ghettoes, the hills of Bulawayo
Ask the Mississippi’s depths, ask the rains of Soweto
Ask Algiers and Uluru, ask them what your own tears know
Children ask for what crime they were buried beneath rubble
Gunshots echo back coldly, “for being disposable”
For being born in a cage, with a Ḍād upon their tongues
Freedom’s dreams within their hearts, meant their lives are cut short, done
Stolen land will always quake, orphan’s wealth will always burn
Feasts of peace purchased with blood all will into ashes turn
This bullet, supremacy, has bounced all around the world
Ricocheting genocides, only swine could love this pearl
Small bodies outnumber all the words of all poetry
And the wounds they bear are more than the branches on the trees
What can this weak wind of words do against these heavy crimes
Whisper life to sparks of hope? Brush silence’s dust of lies?
Where’s our dear Dr. Dabbour? And Yousef the young poet?
Where’d the Amash sisters go? Young Muhammad al-Khayyat?
Has humanity all died in the ruins of Khan Younis?
How can we let our money, leaders, and ourselves do this?
Bombs fall and they pulverize old churches and Hāshim’s mosque
They blaspheme blessed HaShem, killing worlds without a thought
Tragedy’s carved to a knife, grief smelted to explosives
How can hearts this hard still beat? How can tears all turn to shivs?
Though they think they have you trapped, that you’re up against the wall
You are flying in Truth’s skies, even as your shadow falls
Jailers never rest easy settled in their own prison
All fearing that what they do will one day be done to them
Fearing what they have become, fearing mirrors and eyes of friends
If you call your brothers “beasts,” then you’ve become one of them
Evil’s sword has no handle, it is pointed at both ends
One carves up skin, flesh, and bone, the other, hearts, souls, it rends
The drumbeats of the protests, wounded hearts echo the same
Though the leaders try to hush and broadcasters all proclaim:
“Until they die, flee, submit, our crusade will not relent
And if any should ask why, we reply that ‘God wills it!’”
“As long as my order reigns, I’ll be damned if I explain
Why fear’s walls, hate’s open flame, and the guns must all remain”
But as all the TVs fade, and the drums of war subside
In the quiet of the dawn, comes a child’s soft reply:
“If you burn us down to coals, and then squeeze us in a vice
You’ll have made some small diamonds that will shatter you like ice”
Gaza, you’re the most stubborn, the smallest of all beauties
And the loveliest of all from your people’s bravery
Though you’re scarred and cut, limping, half-starved, sleepless through the nights
You rise up like the new moon, beauty marks upon faith’s light
All betrayed you and then wept, when you rose, refused to die
And we’re all ashamed to stand before your unflinching sight
God please water this poor land drenched by tears, fire, and blood
Yā Shāfī heal al-Shifa’, nurture hope’s fragile heart-buds
Bring them into Your gardens—they’ve walked through Hell’s shadow’s blight
— Underneath which rivers’ flow: rest, repose, peace, and delight
Stop and pause and weep for our beloveds, their ruined campsites
We must live this land’s daylight or we’ll share its graves’ dark nights
Oludamini Ogunnaike is an Associate Professor of African Religious Thought at the University of Virginia. His research is focused on Sufism in West Africa and Sufi poetry, as well as indigenous African traditions, especially Ifa. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (PSU Press, 2020), Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madīh Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020), and The Book of Clouds (Fons Vitae, 2024).