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# Two Poems About Palestine
- URL: https://www.merip.org/1988/05/two-poems-about-palestine/
- Published: 1988-05-09T01:14:13.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-29T12:34:43.000Z
- Description: In the Refugee Camp The huts were of mud and hay, their thin roofs feared the rain, and walls slouched like humbled men. The streets were laid out in a grid, as in New York, but without the dignity of names or asphalt. Dust reigned. Women grew pale chickens and children feeding them fables from the
- Author: Sharif Elmusa
- Tags: MER Article, Palestine, Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, Issue 152, #Articles

**In the Refugee Camp**

The huts were of mud and hay,  
their thin roofs feared the rain,  
and walls slouched like humbled men.  
The streets were laid out in a grid,  
as in New York,  
but without the dignity of names  
or asphalt. Dust reigned.  
Women grew pale  
chickens and children  
feeding them fables from the lost land.  
And a madman sawed the minaret  
where a melodious voice  
cried for help on behalf of the believers.

Of course he gazed at the sky  
on clear nights,  
at stars drizzling  
soft grains of light,  
at the moon's deliberate face,  
at the good angel wrapped in purple air.  
He had no ladder  
and nothing from heaven fell  
in his crescent hands.

Ah, how he cursed Adam and Eve  
and the ones who made them refugees.

—*Sharif Elmusa*

This poem originally appeared in *Poetry East* 23/24 (Fall 1987).

**Children Bearing Rocks**

With mere rocks in their hands,  
they stun the world  
and come to us like good tidings.  
They burst with anger and love, defy, fall  
while we remain a herd of polar bears:  
a body armored against weather.

Like mussels we sit in cafes,  
one hunts for a business venture  
one for another billion  
and a fourth wife  
and breasts polished by civilization.  
One stalks London for a lofty mansion  
one traffics in arms  
one seeks revenge in nightclubs  
one plots for a throne, a private army,  
and a princedom.

Ah, generation of betrayal,  
of surrogate and indecent men,  
generation of leftovers, we'll be swept away --  
never mind the slow pace of history --  
by children bearing rocks.

—*Nizar Qabbani*

(Translated by Sharif Elmusa. This poem was first published in *al-Qabas*, December 20, 1987.)