Mosab's Garden
for the poet Mosab Abu Toha & his family
Mosab’s Garden
“in the past, i had a garden of books” — Mosab Abu Toha
if I could, I would send a seed starter across the world for you, Mosab
in the meantime I am sending this message from my personal garden
thinking of you, of Maram, of Mostafa, of Yaffa
of all the children deserving of childhoods
of all the families deserving of homes rather than rubble
& I know as you say, I cannot give you my hope anymore than
I could give you a new garden of books, or restore what you’ve lost, so
in the meantime I am building this collage for you
& I have planted it on my shelf
thinking of how you wrote,
“We have to help hope grow.”
“In ‘A State of Siege,’ the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish writes something that is difficult to translate. ‘We do what jobless people do,’ he says. ‘We raise hope.’ The verb nurabi, meaning to raise or to rear, is what a parent does for a child, or what a farmer does for crops. ‘Hope’ is a difficult word for Palestinians. It is not something that others give us but something that we must cultivate and care for on our own. We have to help hope grow.
I hope that when the war ends I can go back to Gaza, to help rebuild my family home and fill it with books. That one day all Israelis can see us as their equals—as people who need to live on our own land, in safety and prosperity, and build a future. That my dream of seeing Gaza from a plane can become a reality, and that my home can grow many more dreams. It’s true that there are many things to criticize Palestinians for. We are divided. We suffer from corruption. Many of our leaders do not represent us. Some people are violent. But, in the end, we Palestinians share at least one thing with Israelis. We must have our own country—or live together in one country, in which Palestinians have full and equal rights. We should have our own airport and seaport and economy—what any other country has.”
Please, read Mosab’s story.