Love in Action (for Palestine)

Issue #2 of Love In Action emerged from meetings and trans-regional conversations between people in Johannesburg, Kampala, and New York City beginning in November 2023. What started with small groups gathering for workshops, teach-ins, poetry sessions, and collective actions grew into a dialogue across continents and time. We amplified each other’s solidarity through our eyes, voices, hands, minds, and spirits. 

Read the whole zine here

Read the poem I contributed below:

What the Sun Gave Us

(for Rwakaroto and all the lost children of Gaza)

After trauma,

we look for the sun

for the grass

for the gentle and still beings

that surround us.

You were five when you were whisked away

to another plane by the metal carriage

and centripetal force of a wayward car.

I don’t think of the driver

but of the pavement that rose up to meet you.

Of the breath pushed from your lungs.

Of the grave dug in the morning and the soil

that enveloped you before the sun could even set.

I think of the fire that burned through the night

and the embers that ushered you home.

It is hard to look into the passing faces

of Palestinian children decimated by bombs.

They blow away like ash on the wind.

It is hard to understand destruction,

until it crash-lands at your feet.

Like how we don’t know blood

until it has left our bodies.

Now every border overflows

with people feeling from their homes

with the aftermath of their loss

in hot pursuit.

On the way back from the burial

we pass a nursery along Masaka Road.

A collection of budding plants, each

cradled in a blanket of wet soil.

Their baby leaves reach out

for the warm embrace

of the ever-loving sunlight.

No farmer would pluck the budding plants

or watch the sap pour from the fracture

without freeing their own tears.

Tell me, Rwakaroto… up there,

are all the children dancing?

Have heaven’s hands cupped

your broken bird bodies

and set you to flight

as doves from a cage?

Do you know what delight you brought us

while you were here?

Do you know that we still smell

the sweet sap

of all the broken saplings?

It cuts through the burnt musk

of these living nightmares.

It is all we have left

of what the sun gave us.