A weary Palestine dragged without mercy into the dawning,
Blood red, the sky radiates a carnage flowing, and ebbing,
Impassive voices drone smugly from a handful of receivers.
The breathing, resigned, amble t'ward smoldering rubble,
Neighbor to stranger remove stone and soil and nubble,
Unearthing the maim and murder wrought by unbelievers,
Beloved flesh, enmeshed in endless rubble, putrefying.
Frail, worn, gleaning broken beloved in the mourning.
Gleaning beloved,
Gleaning beloved,
Gleaning.
One Jida* finds the head of her dear haffid,*
A bloodied sabiun saghir* wails,
Next to his sweet 'ukht,* silent, halved.
One gentle 'ab,* wraps the shattered remains,
His beautiful bint,* now so much sinew and blood.
So much sinew and blood.
Gleaning beloved.
Stone-hearted, the nations walk t'ward their judgement,
Grossly insatiable in this bedeviled pursuit of power.
Each complicit as the wealth of the nations consume,
The limbs, bodies, minds, dreams, spirits, of Palestinians,
Crushed, torn, burned alive, erased, by western munitions,
As autocrats and despots haggle over Gaza's massed tomb,
It's emaciated people, their life-blood ebb, hour by hour.
Harsh the sentence, on whom their welfare was incumbent.
Gleaning beloved,
Gleaning beloved,
Gleaning.
Will come that day of perfect justice.
Where the gleaning will be at an end,
When torn asunder families, spirits,
and bodies broken beneath the sod,
Will be reborn of tears and Spirit.
Jida, haffid, sabiun saghir, '
ukht, 'ab, bindt, and families.
Who did not see these,
Another ending will unfold.
Gleaning beloved.
‘Depart from me, you who are cursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil
and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
I was bombed for your greed and you did not see me.
I was cast from my home and my people were tormented.
I had to glean the ruins for my children, and you didn't rend your hearts.
Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these,
You did not do for me.’+
Arabic family words from poem.
* Jida / Grandmother
* Haffid / Grandson
* sabiun saghir / young boy
* 'ukht / sister
* 'ab / Father
* bint / Daughter
+Adapted from Matthew 25: 41-45 family words from poem.
