Poem by Mohammad Rasoul Kailani
The serene adhan enjoins the shriek of the rooster,
as the day starts in the Holy Land
All her villages feed their souls with prayer,
and their stomach with the sweetest tea and most brittle Zaatar
The sun shines forcefully, ordering the olives and figs to be picked from their trees
The initiation of the grand journey to market,
A labyrinth of stalls and doors entrapping all the goods of the land
From the finest pottery to the ripest fruit,
nothing greater to be found in Nablus than its most delightful soap,
Its scent capable of mesmerizing the entire Old City,
After traversing the maze-like market,
One refreshes themself with knafeh that hugs your taste buds with the sweetness of a loving mother
Oh, the places to go!
To get lost in Hebron’s suffocating streets and countless bazaars
Trek Nazareth’s enormous hills and admire its massive churches
Or to look at Jericho’s valley with a depth of one thousand tunnels
But none are greater than Jerusalem,
Where religions combine and empires converged
The star of the trade routes, the light of the orient
The apple of the eye and the jewel of the crown
The holiest in the Holy Land
Holy Land, home to my ancestors
The fascination of historians
The dream of poets
The abode of pilgrims
Nowhere compares and no one can quantify it
But I do not know this land
The pristine river and tantalizing gorges
Tainted by the imposing bridges and barbed wire
K-9s growl with the fury of one thousand beasts
As Goliath has devoured the land’s fruits and trees
And what remains of a land chained and exchanged
From a merchant’s heaven to an extraction colony?
The Pharoah and his menacing soldiers
Oppress the land and its progeny
What is gone, and what remains?
As the song of the sunbird is drowned by the sound of the missile
The mule and the wagon replaced by the tank and bulldozer
They’ve killed your spirit, o holy land
Or so they say, but the spirit never dies,
For the roots of its trees remain firm
And the boot cannot break its back
There remains a land ready for return
A return to Jaffa port and it’s savoury oranges
A return to Akka and it’s crystalline waters
A return to Galilee and it’s majestic peaks
A return to every heroic city that never bowed its head
To bring back what’s holy in the holy land
Photo Credit: Mustafa Hassona, Anadolu Agency
