Presence of Absence

Poem: Palestinian belonging to our home

I scream to deaf ears

Protest to blind hearts

Cries echo

Blood soaks the soil which grows our trees

Whose blood grows the trees

We are everywhere

yet you will not find us

in the streets or the markets

the homes or schools

We are here

the cobblestones carry memories of movements

our joy, our pains, our dispossession

Will we ever return?

Did we ever leave?

Questions better answered by the future

One where our absence is felt

and our presence is heard.