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Live Encounters Gaza Poetry & Writing, January 2024
The night of Gaza, poems by Zuhair Abu Shayeb.
The night of Gaza
As he is
Sitting and watching from morning until night
He could not sleep
He could not die like the children of Gaza
There is no martyr
That will come to take him with him on the path to eternity
As martyrs come in every battle
To visit life and its children
And they say to them:
We never died. We are here in life
And if people close their eyes
They would have seen us.
As he is
He does not do anything but that all the time
He looks towards the small sky
But he does not see…
He does nothing but
Whenever the planes howled, he cracked like a house
And collapsed
And his soul stuck to the ground
He does nothing but remain silent
Fearing that his groan would awaken the martyrs from their sleep
He does not do anything
Except he does not do anything
As the martyrs crossed light and shining in the Gaza night
Heaven returns to earth again
And life returns to her home
Like a widow whose husband died decades ago
And he continued to die of silence every day
And he completes his deficit
© Zuhair Abu Shayeb
Zuhair Abu Shayeb (1958) is a Palestinian poet and writer. He obtained a BA in Arabic Language and Literature from Yarmouk University in 1982. He was a member of the administrative board of the Association of Jordanian writers for several sessions, and a member of the Association and the General Union of Arab Writers. In 2012, he received Mahmoud Darwish Award for Creativity. Among his poetry collections: The Geography of Winds and Questions 1986, The Book of Statuses and Maqamat 1987, The Biography of the Grass 1997. In addition to a play entitled: Blind White (1987)