Jewels of God

For Gaza and everyone. From Mother Poems and A Crack in Time by Shambhavi Sarasvati at Kindred 108. We're all kindred here.

for Mosab Abu Toha

Your tears are the jewels of God.
Your anger is God’s sword.
Your patience is a miracle and
among the great proofs of the
value of a human incarnation.

Your grief is shredding the fabric of the world
to reveal the real world.
The fact that you keep on
pleading is an austerity beyond all austerities
and a mercy beyond all mercies.
God’s mirror is
ablaze in you.
The clarity with which it reflects
is hard to bear.

Since childhood, I have marched around
chanted and danced to
songs of liberation.
Argued this or that point
and built sand castle solutions
out of enthusiasm, books, and air.

We were having fun
pumping ourselves up with
music and solidarity.
Now I’m heavy with
the sadness of these
late-stage revelations.
Now I seriously consider that
we may not
survive and that
we are not winning in
that easier way with our
delusions left
undestroyed.

Now I see that
if we want even
ordinary victory
we must call this
destruction and
descent by its real names
and bear thoroughly the
horror and
humanity of it all.

Mosab Abu Toha is a Gazan poet, teacher, and activist who managed to leave Gaza after being abducted by Israeli occupation forces in 2023. He now lives and teaches in the United States. He has published two books of poetry: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and Forest of Noise.

from Mother Poems and A Crack in Time, poems by Shambhavi Sarasvati

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