THE BEAUTIFUL ONES HAVE CHANGED TO LIGHT
Author’s Note: I wrote and delivered this poem in honor of the martyred poets and writers of Gaza and Falesteen as part of the first ever Los Angeles reading of the Gaza Monologues, on January 19, 2024. To birth this poem, I soul-studied each of the named martyrs (among so many unnamed here) and, for each of them, wrote passages specifically in their honor. My prayer is that these personalized passages intuitively reflect aspects of their singular lives, work, passions, personalities, prayers, and dreams, including phrases here that are inspired by and evocative of their own written work.
Heba Abu Nada. We grant you refuge in the warm womb of our grieving hearts. We grant you refuge in our joy still remaining. We grant you refuge in your own songs and stories and poems that we keep for you in the tender treasure chests of our Love. We will keep them for you forever. We grant you refuge in the rising breath of our prayers. In the kindling of our passion. In the steadfast acres of our freedom actions. We grant you refuge in the cloudbanks of our memories. We will plant your poetry in the fertile earth of your enduring spirit. And it will grow. And your people will eat of it, and find its shade and song, and breathe its oxygen for the living, and fall in Love, and rise in freedom, and the calligraphy of your heart will etch this world in beauty for a thousand seasons that birth a thousand seasons more.
Omar Faris Abu Shaweesh. You bright sun. You smile pure as a stream. You song. Now you walk with the people as mist and glory. You are spirit caressing their skin. Embracing friends and strangers with your sweet call to action. You live now in the April winds and October dawns. You bright sun. Everlasting glow on the hills of togetherness.
Dr. Refaat Alareer. If you must die, become a field of stubborn flowers who know they are not numbers. If you must die, become a persistent pollen that drives the bees of poetry to lust. Become a rock quarry where gather the children born of fire to sing their hearts to a Loving moon. Become countless Junes. Become a flock of kites carrying the passion of Gaza, of Falesteen to the world. Become prayer call. Become hope, and a beautiful tale of what it means to live. Become all the beautiful languages of kindness, and mercy, and Love.
Abdul Karim Al-Hashash. You, our brother, our sage, you are soft syllables in the silver air, teaching the people the truth of their people. They walk through you, for your soul is a doorway unto themselves. You Bedouin basket of heritage and ancestry. Soft springwater of Arab proverbs. Rare book out in the open yet never faded by sunlight. Your print remains. The prophets know your name.
Inas Al-Saqa. Now you are a rose garden in which all the children gather to act out the play. Your heart is their theater. Your Love for them is their stage. Inas al-Saqa. You are how we pronounce the story of Gaza, of Falesteen. Your five children are in your arms, sharing a warmth with you that blushes the lemon trees.
Dr. Jihad Suleiman Al-Masri. Now you are an ocean. Deep with your people’s history. All are free to swim in your clarified waters and come to know themselves. You wash them clean. You wash them clean. Your wife and daughter are with you. And you are with them. An everlasting dream.
Yusuf Dawas. Now you are in your family’s orchard, playing your beLoved guitar. As your fingers farm the sinewy soil of strings, all the ancestors fruit again on the trees. The olives, oranges, clementines, loquat, guavas, lemons, and pomegranates puff into ripeness and color, eager for your melody. Yusuf, you tender heart. Now you are how the land photographs its own soul.
Shahadah Al-Buhbahan. Your granddaughter laughs on your knee. She is finally free. Your humor is her kunafa (knafeh) as she runs. Sweetness on her tongue. She is so young. And now you are young enough to run with her. To the sea.
Nour Al-Din Hajjaj. We do not consent to your death. You are not a number. You are everything that is joyful. You are sipping coffee by the sea, serenaded by Fairouz. Children’s laughter warms your chest. Your soul is a dove of peace. Your audience fills the eternal theater. The Gray Ones have color now. You are how we know that your people Love life. Your books and words have wings that freely fly around the world, and your dream has come: Your small family, your son who looks like you, and a quiet, peaceful moment under the stars. Your voice is a bedtime story trailing into a nighttime that is safe for sleeping.
Mustafa Hassan Mahmoud Al-Sawwaf. Your lifetime of Loving analysis of your people’s reality has broken the cage. Your Love became words, became Love again, became freedom. You hold the house upright. You never falter. All the generations and their days of rage have, and will, find solace in the lakes of Love on your obsidian page. You are a synonym for soul.
Abdullah Al-Aqad. Your wife and children went to the sky with you. Your family no longer need fear becoming migrant, refugee, detainee. Your family is free. Khan Younis will flower again. Your family will be that floral variety, with petals of sunlight, wet with dew, and a fragrance like hibiscus tea and honey, with notes of joy coming through.
Dr. Said Talal Al-Dahshan. Your passionflower legal work is soaked in Love. Now it has wings and no borders to cross or walls to climb. It has roots and the rooting is already deeper than the sea. When humanity seeks justice and accountability, your royal purple blossom will be the jewel of our ascendancy.
Saleem Al-Naffar. You peaceful robe of night. You gentle truth. You resistance refusing to surrender collective grace and dignity. Your poetry will be splashed on resurrected walls and halls and hearts open like windows to the written, weeping, wild rumor that life is coming, life is coming for all. Sometimes, you sing. When you do, a paradise unfolds that is gorgeous and worthy of struggle. Bless you for your song.
FOR THE MANY MARTYRED ARTISTS AND SOULS
We souls gathered here tonight give honor and cry tears also for Gaza and Falesteen’s martyred unnamed, uncelebrated, unpublished, unpaid artists of all kinds. Including the children who had only begun their bloom as poetry. And those martyred along the century-old road, such as Ghassan Kanafani. And the father tree of Levantine poets, Mahmoud Darwish. And for the living: We pray for you, InshAllah, a steaming teacup to warm your lips. Qudsia to warm your bellies. Fresh bread to warm your hearts. Lasting peace to warm your hope. Togetherness to warm your dreams.
The beautiful ones have changed to Light. Evaporated into a sweeter atmosphere. And now, and now… the Falesteen sky is a library. An archive. An amphitheater. A reading of poems. The Falesteen sky is a playground. A trampoline. A chorus of child laughter. The Falesteen sky is a lullaby. A bedtime story. A marketplace. A carnival of dreams. The Falesteen sky is a painting. A novel. A romance. A drama. A planting. A harvest. A dinner table. A family meal. A drunken uncle. A wild woman no one invited. A wise grandmother. An untamable auntie. A good wine. A pomegranate marinade. A stew spilled on the floor. A dog lapping up the gift. Children laughing at the absurdity. Gaza. In your Holy sky, we on earth can clearly see: The people are beautiful. And the people are free. InshAllah. Shukran, Gaza. Shukran, Falesteen.
With Love and Reverence,
Jaiya John
January 19, 2024
*A video of me reciting this poem live fpr the first time is on my Instagram. Please feel free to share and post this poem with proper crediting far and wide, especially within the diaspora Falesteen and Levantine communities. May our Love reach them and be solace, salve, and balm in the human breeze.
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