What is home?
It is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were uprooted.
It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo before the walls crumbled.
It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights, before it was looted and put in a museum.
It was the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken before a bomb reduced our house to ashes.
It is the café where I watched football matches and played.
My child stops me: can a four-letter word hold all of these?
—Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha
lN Gaza, poetry has become the embodiment of I genocide. In a four-storey house, the third floor used to be occupied by a poet. His name is Mosab Abu Toha. He had a writer’s desk and a wall full of books. He had built Gaza’s first English library there. He used to spend hours there, reading and writing.
This story is from the January 11, 2024 edition of Outlook.
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This story is from the January 11, 2024 edition of Outlook.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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