Laylat al Henna

Laylat al Henna

First point of entry:

When his boots
Smashed
through my door...
(I REFUSE you!
You will not hear me scream,
You will gather
Neither information nor
tears from me)

Bitch,
he whispered,

And heated up the wires.

Here he asked the question--
Here and here
-And the skin swelled
like ripe fruit

Jealously, he demanded names,
Who?
Who?
And who?

Who left the bombs for us
On the road to Damascus?

So I spit out names:

A name for every prick
Searing stars into my flesh.

Here, I said, is Akka,

And here is Haifa.

Put it to me again...

I have hundreds
To give you.

I will not repress
One village,
One tree, one stone...

So come closer with that wire:

See if YOU can draw on me
The map of MY homeland.

'So much for your land.'
(These were his last words.)

Ribs mend, bones knit,

When I wake screaming
The night blankets me again,

And I have learned
How to ride the night mare
From dark to dawn.

But now, Israeli,
You will hear MY knock at YOUR door.

Still, I refuse both you and yours:

I do not flirt with suffering,
Even yours...

My delivery will be express.

So you see, Commander,
Israeli romance is not for me:

Your ways will never be my way,
Even as MY land can never be yours.

If I wed death now,
You, Commander,
Will be my witness
At the crossroads
between heaven and hell.

Before you and I part ways,
I swear:

I will henna my hands
With your blood.

By Nabila Harb
February 2000

Note: This poem is based on a true story, real events that occurred in Lebanon during the invasion. The name of the poem, 'Laylat al Henna' refers to the traditional 'Henna Night' before a wedding.

To M............ A......

To Muhammad A.


Every martyr
Is a flame
For the light
Of inspiration

One martyr
For a brief instant
Seared our vision:
His star
In its fall
Igniting a second Dawn.

You live on
In our dreams:
A clearsighted archer
Who rode his arrow
Into the Eye of the Enemy

Shattering the sound barrier,
Shattering windows,
Breaking all records,
Driving a black hole into the centre
Of the metropolis.

In that instant
Of obliteration,
Light caved into darkness:
A nation had a heart attack
And a volcano was reborn.

Moving
Beyond faint shadows of hope,
Echoes of despair,
And the compromises of the weak
TO ACT

Voyaging
A universe beyond
The world of words,
The web of illusion,
And the endless litany of abuses
We have endured
For over fifty years...

Repudiating
The daily harvest
Of the victims:
The mere crumbs
Of life and death
Our people
Have come to expect...

Answering
The desperate cry
Of the helpless who have no helper,
The smothered scream
Of the oppressed.

You tore off the veil of fear
And launched it at the enemy
You rent the veil of hope
That binds us to inaction
And met death head on,
Taking it by the throat.

Clenching your teeth
Against terror,
You unlocked the door
Of history -
And the flame in your heart
Engulfed the world...

If suicide is an escape:
Your death was not a suicide.
If suicide is a coward's answer
To the question of life,
Your death was a challenge
To the question.

Some try to claim
It was the act
Of one
Who hates freedom and life itself.
But I say:
Hatred had no part of you,
And you knew well
The gulf
Between living and existing.

I salute you, brother:
One of the few
Who feared your Lord
More than you feared mankind,
Beyond reach
Of all corruption,
Both then and now.

On your quest,
You took nothing
Except knowledge,
A pure heart
And a boxcutter.

And after all,
You did not appoint yourself
An executioner:
You and your fellow travellers,
Took the same flight
And every road
In this life
Ends in death.

In the ashes
Scattered by the winds
Beyond terror
Truth scrawled across the heavens:
Justice and Mercy
Belong to our Lord.
Courage is for those
Whose hands are free
To grasp the thorn of victory,
Not arms that reach out
In greed.

Even after death,
Your imprint remains
On an entire nation:

The tail of the scorpion,
Sting of death
To your enemies,

Proof
Of unquenchable light
To the oppressed.

In our qasidas
You forever will remain:
One of the few
Who love and fear their Lord
More than they fear mankind.




By Nabila Harb

To the Martyr

In a different world, love would have meant creating a home for ourselves and
our own children. In this world of demolitions and destruction, I loved him
all the more for his sacrifice... that there might be a chance for those who
follow if not for us.


To The Martyr

In my dreams, you walk backwards
Into life
A swimmer against the current of the galaxies.

The flower uncurls from its withering,
The olive casts its shadow
Once more
On a field unravished,
And the house still stands.

All that was torn to bits
fragmented in your death
Flows into seamless beauty:

Again your mouth is whole,
The bruises darken into space
And light is reborn.

Oh, if I could but reach you…
Recover the steps,
Enter into the map,
Become one with the dream.

The dream has taken me hostage,
And yet here I remain
A candle without flame,
A rhythm without a heart.

I wake
To embrace the light,

But endless space unwinds between us,
And I fear I might lose
my place
In the story.

Every distant wall bears
The imprint of your hand,
Every tombstone bears
Your name
Every battle cry
Your voice

If I could but cross the line…
I can remain true
to you
only
If my courage can run
the distance

Light the flame
Consume the shadow
And sink the burden of fear
In the unfathomable
Reaches of the unfulfilled.

There,
somewhere
In the silence beyond death

All things become...............

Visions are distilled into truth
And love relinquishes all boundaries.

By: Nabila Harb

A Mother's Song

A mother's song



Why did you have to blow yourself up,
O my daughter?

Light of my eyes,
My blessing from Allah!
My heart longs for such simple things:
To sing at your wedding,
Carry your infant in my arms,
And help till the soil
That should have belonged
To you and your husband,
My grandchildren and their children.

Why, o why, could you not live
In peace in our land?
Why could you not choose life
Instead of death?

Why did you blow yourself up,
O my daughter?

Should such beauty as yours
Be reduced to rags of flesh
And smeared on the pavement,
To be cleansed from the street
By a streetcleaner
Like so much filth?

Why did you blow yourself up,
O my daughter?

I watched you grow
As tall and strong
As the olive tree
In the courtyard
Of my grandfather's house.

Alas, that you never saw it:
Long before you were born,
They chopped the tree down,
Filled the courtyard
With the rubble
Of the house
They demolished,
When they destroyed our village,
And took our land.

What they could not extinguish
Was the flame of our memories
And the torch of our dreams.

And we rejoiced
At your engagement,
Singing the old songs,
Celebrating
The nights of henna,
Reddening your palms
And the soles of your feet
With flowers and vines,
And the moon of Palestine.

The day of your wedding:
Hope blossomed in our hearts,
The beauty of all of Palestine,
Embroidered into your gown,
And then...

Your husband
Was brought to you
In a coffin.
Shot in the head
As he tended the field
That once belonged
To our families.

They told us
He was planting a bomb
When in fact
He was planting
An olive tree.

But then,
All Palestinian trees
Are a threat,
Which is why
They declared war
On our trees.
And all Palestinians
Are a threat
To the purity
Of the Zionist dream,
Which is why
They shoot first
And cover up later.

O my people,
Draw near
And celebrate
My daughter's sacrifice!

What else could she do
But blow herself up?

O my daughter,
Let your picture
Be on every wall,
And let the fruit
Of your sacrifice
Be inspiration
For every one of us,
Survivors of the Nakba,
Children of Occupation.

And let your sacrifice
Remain
Terror in the hearts
Of those who robbed us
Of our hopes,
And your future
In this life,
In our land.

O my daughter,
When they took from us
Our homes,
And all that
In this life is dear
To every human heart,
It is they
Who lit the fuse
Of the bombs
Of their own destruction.


Nabila Harb
Yowm al Ard 2002

To the Occupiers

To the Occupiers

To the Occupiers
You deal death
With 'peace',
End the occupation
With annexation,
Reduce Palestinians
To puppets on a string
Dancing at the end of the master's leash
Or at the end of a noose.
Your chequepoints provide
Population control:
Keep the Palestinian mothers in line
Until the newborn child expires
And Palestine's future expires
Along with the Palestinian passports
That never issued forth
From the barren womb
Of your peace process.
Dust to dust shall return
Is the promise of old
Dust in a shoebox
Dust created at a chequepoint ...
Na'ama is dust
3 month old Qussai is dust...
The babies of Hebron
Dust swept under the Zionist carpet of lies.
They are dust
Like the villages of Palestine
Like the dreams of Palestine
Are dust
Dust to dust shall return
But even that right of return
Is denied
To Palestinian dust.
Do not forget:
A tornado
Is nothing but dust
Whipped into a fury.
Na'ama and Qussai
We see your faces
In the Palestinian whirlwind
Taking shape in the distance
May the whirlwind deliver us
From the open wound of peace
Festering in the homeland.
May it scour the land clean
Of the filth of occupation!


Dust to dust
Cries out for justice.
Dust to dust
Cries out for deliverance.
We fear nothing
But the obliteration
That passes for peace...
One atom split
Changed the world.
Beware of the power
Of Palestinian dust!
by Nabila Al Harb

A Lesson in Painting

Here is an eloquent poem by Nizar Qabbani, one of the great voices of the Arab Nation.

A Lesson in Drawing

My son places his paint box in front of me
and asks me to draw a bird for him.
Into the colour grey I dip the brush
and draw a square with locks and bars.

Astonishment fills his eyes:
'... But this is a prison, Father,
Don't you know how to draw a bird?'

And I tell him:
'Son, forgive me,
I've forgotten the shapes of birds.'

My son puts the drawing book in front of me
and asks me to draw a stalk of wheat.
I hold the pen
And draw a gun.

My son mocks my ignorance,
demanding:
'Don't you know, Father,
The difference between a stalk of wheat and a gun?'

I tell him:
'Son, once I knew the shapes of wheat stalks,
the shape of a bread loaf,
the shape of a rose.
But in this hardened time,
The trees of the forest
Have joined the militias,
And the rose wears dull fatigues.
In this time of armed wheat stalks,
Armed birds,
Armed culture and armed religion,
You can't buy a loaf
Without finding a gun inside.
You can't pluck a rose in the field
Without it raising its thorns in your face.
You can't buy a book
That doesn't explode between your fingers.'

My son sits at the edge of my bed
And asks me to recite a poem.
A tear falls from my eyes onto the pillow.

My son licks it up, astonished, saying:
'But this is a tear, Father, not a poem!'

And I tell him:
'When you grow up, my son,
and read the diwan of Arabic poetry,
You'll discover
That the word and the tear are twins,
And the Arabic poem
Is no more than a tear wept by writing fingers.'

Nizar Qabbani