A personal note: I was unable to rouse myself to post here yesterday (or to complete many of my regular activities) because of the distressing events in the American body politic since Friday evening. I will resume with a regular posting this afternoon.

However, I want to express my gratitude to Mazin Qumsiyeh, Professor and (volunteer) Director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, for his writing on his blog yesterday that helped me think through exactly why the events in the US and our president’s reaction to them were so devastating to me (and many other Americans).

Please read Professor Qumsiyeh’s writing at his blog, Popular Resistance.

I am also grateful that I recalled Mahmoud Darwish’s poem on “hope” to give a word of clarity in this bizarre time.

(You may check back here later today for my regular posting.)

Thank you, Harold Knight

“ON  HOPE,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH

Do not tell me:
I wish to be a baker in Algeria
In order to sing with the revolutionaries
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a shepherd in the Yemen
To sing for the uprising of the age
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a waiter in Havana
To sing for the victory of the poor
Do not tell me:
I wish to be a stone carrier in Aswan
To sing for the rocks
My friends:
The Nile will not pour into the Volga
The Congo and Jordan Rivers
Will not serve the Euphrates
Each river has its own
Our land is not barren
Each land has its own rebirth
Each dawn has a date with revolution.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN  RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.  Available from Amazon.
About Mahmoud Darwish.