Sahar Khalifeh

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Wild Thorns

Macy HB

Mount sinai, that ‘peaceful land’ that had never known peace. No; perhaps it had, once. A land of milk and honey, the ‘promised land.

Yes, and poetry dies, along with passion. Everything becomes a link in the chain of the 'cause' itself. But... ‘Sad northern nights ...’ The words still sliced into him, into his sensitive, lonely soul.

They suck our blood and make our lives hell so we'll emigrate. ‘To think I waited two long years to rejoin my family,’ said Usama, ‘looking forward to this day as though it were my wedding night.’ But life inside the occupied territories is unbearable.’ ‘And I looked forward to it so much!’

As he got into the taxi, he glanced around him at the landscape. Yes, heaven was here beneath his feet and before his eyes. But he was now a prisoner in the genie's bottle.

Skilled hands had removed all the natural ground cover of spring to prevent anything undesirable from slipping across the border, to keep out anyone bent on challenging state security.

The land itself, the occupation, was a crime we ourselves perpetrated, he thought, and the people's strength is only a myth. We swallowed the rhetoric and believed it was a cause, a revolution. But one hand can't clap on its own, as they say, and I'm alone. I'm alone.

But occupation is still occupation. Dignity excised was still lost.

There's more than one dimension to the picture.' They walked on together, each contemplating his own dimension, and his own sorrows.

Those with seats promptly rested their heads on each other's shoulders and fell into a fitful sleep.

Blood gushed from four of his fingers, the red flow sinking into the sandy soil from which the roots of orange trees had recently been torn out.

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