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# It Was Beirut, All Over Again
- URL: https://www.merip.org/1990/01/it-was-beirut-all-over-again/
- Published: 1990-01-10T20:06:33.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-29T12:37:25.000Z
- Description: It was Beirut, all over again, it was Beirut on the radio El Salvador on TV it was Sabra & Shatila in the memory it was Usulutan in the heart It was Beirut, again, when we thought Beirut went to rest, but Beirut will not sleep until El Salvador sleeps and San Francisco will not eat until Eritrea ea
- Author: Etel Adnan
- Tags: MER Article, Lebanon, Lebanon War (1975-1990), #wp, #wp-post, Issue 162, #Articles

It was Beirut, all over again,  
it was Beirut on the radio  
El Salvador on TV  
it was Sabra & Shatila  
in the memory  
it was Usulutan in the heart

It was Beirut, again,  
when we thought Beirut went  
to rest, but Beirut will not sleep  
until El Salvador sleeps  
and San Francisco will  
not eat  
until Eritrea eats  
and El Salvador  
will not die

It was Beirut all over again  
in Managua, in Antigua,  
in the shantytowns of  
Marseilles,  
wherever the radio blares its  
sounds  
and I mean everywhere  
in this electronic age  
and the caveman suffers  
in the belly of El Salvador  
and there are tunnels leading  
to the headquarters of Hope

there is hope in El Salvador  
because there are people,  
there is hope in El Salvador  
because dignity has a name,  
over there,  
because EVIL is so great  
so ominous  
over there  
that even Jesuit priests  
have become rebels  
for the first time in History.

It was Beirut all over again  
that day, and today, and  
every day  
because bananas and mangos  
grow every day,  
because the sun, carefully,  
shines every day  
so there is hope, every day,  
under the bombs,  
there is hope, every day,  
in the bleeding arteries  
of El Salvador  
and there is Jesus, the “Salvador,”  
there,  
somewhere, who ascended  
to the Pantheon of the Indian Gods,  
and in whose Resurrection we  
will believe only when  
all the people on this Earth,  
and all the plants,  
and all the animals,  
and all the universes,  
will resurrect,  
and resurrection is dignity,  
I mean,  
resurrection is freedom,  
resurrection is bread and a house  
for the poor, resurrection is peace, for all,  
for ever,  
for ever.  
It was Beirut all over again  
because orphanages  
grow faster than schools  
in El Salvador, sunsets set beyond  
the people’s reach,  
and there is no  
other horizon there than  
the horizon of terror.  
It was Beirut, all over again,  
because the sea rose on its feet  
and unleashed a litany  
of words,  
it is Beirut, all over again,  
because poets die  
rather than surrender,  
because they speak of hope,  
and do not wear  
their words like a necklace  
of pearls,  
because poets refuse to die,  
and carry hope on their  
backs, and go from door  
to door, like bees do  
from flower to flower,  
to leave messages of defiance  
in the  
people’s hearts.

And it is Beirut all over again  
with water on the horizon  
cemeteries outcrowding hotels  
airplanes bringing the worst  
of news  
and infinite processions of sorrow

And it is Beirut all over again  
because people are running  
to keep their belly and their brain  
in line,  
carrying their honor as their sole  
piece of luggage  
and counting the dead  
among themselves  
the way we count pennies  
in the cities of Power

And it is Beirut all over again  
because people mumble their  
prayers and expect the  
Virgin Mary to listen  
and people know they are trapped  
and they remember the  
tablecloth, back home,  
and the food,  
before ending up in the morgue

And it was Beirut all over again  
with fathers shooting their  
sons  
and sons burying their fathers  
before the mosquitoes made them  
unrecognizable

and it was Beirut all over again  
when only the banks stood erect  
and money increased  
at the rate of the wounded

and it was Beirut all over again  
with the sky expanding  
every second to make  
room for the anonymous  
heroes of the streets of  
El Salvador.