Clothes on a line say: you’ll
Live long enough to Wear me²
Their Guns are Bigger than us,
Their Tanks bigger than Shrines³
We Refuse to Forget our Laughter –
Even if the World Forgets we have it⁴
To Enjoy Fireworks, you would have
Had to have Lived a Different kind of Life⁵
What does Infinity look like? Not like a Wall – not
Like Soldiers with Guns – not like a Ruined House
Bombed out of being – not like concrete Wreckage
Of a School’s good hope, a Clinic’s best dream⁶
The Wind Flutters the hem of her Dress
And says there’s No Border in the sky⁷
We’re not headed toward Hope’s End:
We’re Awash in Hope’s Beginnings⁸
Politics is simply the way Human
Beings treat one another on Earth⁹
What do Palestinians Want?
Confidence in a Threshold¹⁰
All lines from Naomi Shihab Nye
¹ Two Countries
² Blood
³ And That Mysterious Word Holy
⁴ Arab Festival T-shirt
⁵ No Explosions
⁶ Cross the Sea
⁷ Where the Soft Air Lives
⁸ Life Loves
⁹ Conversation with Grace Paley
¹⁰ What Do Palestinians Want?