That Day on the Gaza

This poem was written during the first Palestinian intifada. Because of what’s happening now in Gaza following the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, I am posting it here today.

While no one should condone what took place that day, we should not forget that oppressed people can only be oppressed for so long. The fight for freedom never dies. The pressure can build for only so long before the pressure cooker explodes.

There’s only one solution for peace — for both the Palestinians and the Israelis: a political solution which involves two, independent states.

They were tired. 
They had waited twenty years. 
Too many houses had fallen 
too many olive groves destroyed. 
The songs of Fairuz 
veiled their patient tongues. 
The barbed wire fence 
encaged the camps 
like a prison. 
 
That day on the Gaza 
the children were playing in the broken gutter. 
The men in kuffiyyas 
were waiting restlessly 
for their bus to the quarries. 
There was a woman in black 
squatting on the sidewalk. 
She was selling fruits and herbs. 
She was washing her wares 
in her quiet tears. 
 
A young boy picked up an angry stone. 
Then the soldiers came 
then there was wailing 
then the sounds of silence died. 
 
Give me a stone, 
I don't need no gun. 
Guns were made 
by the hands of the warden. 
Stones were made 
by the hand of God. 
 
Give me a stone, 
I will fill up the sky. 
The sky is a place 
that has no limits.
Freedom is a tree 
that never dies.

Copyright 1988, 2023 by Mike Maggio

This poem originally appeared in my chapbook, Oranges From Palestine (Mardi Gras Press, 1996).