Your memory is a sliver of an absent heaven. In the May mirror, I see your angelic smile, reminding me to caress old dawns that were snatched from you. I hope you find joy where eternity flourishes in green. I forgot to tell you how the bitterness of life melts in your midday coffee, how you shape laughter out of the tireless sting of loss, and how you turn sorrow into the bread of Sunday mornings. Mother, the basil is growing in our garden. I still remember your words about basil; it carries the scent of a lost heaven. If a lost heaven returns, will you?
— Moe Moussa
Mother, you raised a son full of tenderness, that even when all the world around him is fire and horror and ash, he dreams in green and basil beneath a silent sky. A heart like this is the bridge between earth and heaven. He wraps the world with the vision of a single peaceful day, of laughter, warm coffee and bread. What else is there to life than this? Those who seek to annihilate him have not figured out the answer yet.
In the heart of Gaza, amidst rubble and relentless grief, poet and journalist Moe Moussa (IG: @gaza.guy) founded the
, a haven for young voices who dream in two languages while fiercely advocating against genocide and injustice. Through incomprehensible violence and siege, Moe continues to write, to speak, and to create.I wrote the poem above in response to Moe’s, as part of Gaza’s Creative Allies, a circle of international writers supporting Gaza Poets Society through poetry and visual arts. The goal is not to speak over, but to echo. To offer our voices like opals, each one catching a different light. Hoping, praying, it reaches those who choose to be deaf.
I selected this specific poem, with permission, to remind the world that Palestinians are not to be pitied. Their true selves are of oceans, of gardens, of dreams. And I believe that is how they endure. Even now their resilience reaches out to the hearts of so many all over the world, like the roots of a great tree. Those of us who are listening, we move too slowly still. We try to play by the rules of a broken system. But I know in my heart, we can create a world where all of us are free.
The same corporations that profit from endless war also profit from our sickness, our debt, our exhaustion. Nearly a third of American taxes fund violence we will never benefit from while our own needs are unmet. The (ill)logic that flattens Gaza is the same one that isolates us, that fuels us with anxiety and insecurity while feeding on our fears, that lets families go bankrupt over insulin or rent, that cries pro-life only until the baby is born, that rips immigrant families apart even though if all the immigrants were gone, there would be no America left.
I don’t have all the answers, but if you’re a poet, I invite you to write too. Write a response, a prayer, a refusal to be docile. Write a vision for a new world. It begins with us.
And if you wonder what one voice can do, remember that a thousand whispers turns into a mighty roar.
You can share your poem publicly, or email gazapoets@gmail.com if you’d like to offer it for their platform on IG: @gazascreativeallies.
You can also support the poetry community in Gaza by donating to or purchasing their anthologies on their BuyMeACoffee or just sharing the link and spreading the word.
For poetry and a free Palestine ♡
"that even when all the world around him
is fire and horror and ash,
he dreams in green and basil beneath
a silent sky."
Powerful words!
Powerful.. Thank-you for sharing this.