You Cultivate Hope- A Poem For Hana

Our spring in Palestine is born in a prison cell,

Our spring in Palestine is born- shackled to hospital bed,

Our spring in Palestine is born with an administrative detention order against it,

but it blossoms,

even in hunger,

even in hunger- I pray you strength,

I pray you justice,

I pray you freedom,

Hana! I pray your heart muscle holding all of us tonight,

holding on a day longer,

sunrise stronger,

do forgive me sister,

I forgot prayers sometime ago,

lost them in alleys and refugee camps,

too crowded with shrapnel memory,

when sound barrier breaking, skies breaking, sound breaking,

wasn't sure our voices reached God anymore,

that same year 82-you were born,

but you cultivate hope in me,

so I light candles and kneel to whisper,

I pray you strength,

I pray you justice,

I pray you freedom,

you cultivate hope in the rest of us,

cultivate that part hungry for freedom,

that part hungry for justice, 

lost in road maps to nowhere,

roadmaps to anywhere,

but the shores of Akka,

you cultivate hope that was long lost in their pragmatic solutions,

in your hunger- we finally find our own again,

you cultivate hope in the rest of us,

in your strength, we are no longer 67 Palestinians, 48 Palestinians- no numbers dividing us by massacres that are attached to our skins,

no numbers for years divinding us by massacres attached to our skin,

no negotiating tables to die over in silence and no intellectual conversations to argue how lucky women are,

how lucky and how free- they get to serve in army,

one of them hand-cuffed you as other beat you, 

one dragged you across the floor,

one promised severe punishment,

in your silence you are stronger then each of them,

you cultivate hope in the rest of us,

what do your captor know of your heart-muscles born to the beat of the bombs over the youth,

born against the state of siege,

born in a rhythm louder than gun

born free,

what do they know of us,

our hearts are as soft as child hands,

learnt to pick up rock with a care of farmer's living harvest,

our spring in Palestine is born in a prison-cell,

our spring in Palestine is born shackled to hospital bed,

Our spring in Palestine is born with an administrative detention order against it,

but our spring in Palestine blossoms,

even in hunger,

their walls can only surround them,

their prisons can only hold their dreams still,

your spirit-our spirit-like spring- will always be free,

I pray us strength,

I pray us justice,

I pray us freedom!

-Rafeef Ziadah

Hana al Shalabi's mother holding her photo during a protest

listen to this poem here .


Hana Shalabi is a Palestinian political prisoner. She was released from over two years in administrative detention on 18 October 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal. She was re-arrested less than four months later on 16 February 2012, and immediately began a hunger strike in protest of her detention.
Cultivate Hope, a poem written on day 40 of Hana Shalabi's hunger strike, by Rafeef Ziadah / music by Phil Monsour.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rafeef-Ziadah/188528597889

Note:excuse the mistakes as I wrote it while listening to it. I have missed/misunderstood/words.