IT is said that once Lebanese poet and novelist Abbas Beydoun asked Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, "So how did you come to poetry?" and Darwish said, "I don't know...My mother hated marriages and never went to weddings, but she never missed a funeral. I once heard her lamenting at a funeral. I heard her say things that were pure poetry." War brings laments. We must lament the death, destruction and genocide led by the Zionist Israeli state. But let us also sing lullabies for the children of Gaza who are facing the Holocaust. They remain most precarious and insecure. Lullaby is their defense of lives and dreams. Even if they are displaced, even if they have to go into exile, the lullaby will bring them back home. It will keep their memories of childhood alive. Its soundness is the surety of the future of Palestine. We wish that Zionists could also hear the lullaby from the past, from the Holocaust, so they could also see this genocide.
This story is from the December 11,2023 edition of Outlook.
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This story is from the December 11,2023 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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