Adeeba Sheeraz
Twenty years ago, my mama told me
That there was an olive tree
Whose broad branches stretched far and wide
Wide enough to carry a man and a child
“My olive tree, my olive tree,”
said she.
Twenty years ago, twenty years after my mother heard from her mother The stories of the land we left behind
Not because we wanted to
But because we had to –
“It’s alright,” said the mother of my mother
“War maketh man do many things.”
I’m not sure I believed her
With her skin gnarled like the roots of the olive tree
Eyes withered
Unlike boughs pregnant with fruit
Borne upon a widow’s tears.
My mother didn’t believe her either, but she said nothing For she knew the generational agony
Of leaving
With only a key
And a crying baby
And a dead son
When your husband was no more
Because a settler shot him
through the chest.
“It’s alright,” said the mother of my mother
“War maketh man do many things.”
I’m not sure I believed her
For her frail hands shook
At the slightest breeze
The way she did when she lied
Shook,
like the tree she left behind
That day, in 1948.
But I do not lie about the past
Even if they will pull wool over my lips
Like they did to the many mothers before us
And the fathers too.
The wool may choke me, and leave cuts on my tongue But I shall carry it on me
Like a medal.
“Even if war maketh man do many things, this is not one of them.”
Now, I lament
Like my mother did
And her mother did
For the tree that awaits by the porch Where the young woman once left With only a key
And a crying baby
And a dead son
And a husband no more
Still I lament
For this tree carries the birth of trauma Not in its womb,
For trees are not women
But in its roots –
The roots of the Palestinians.
