PALESTINE | POETRY
Airplanes
Poem I wrote in Palestine on October 7, 2023, at 10:30 PM
The morning of October 7, we woke up in Ramallah to a confusion of news. By afternoon, we were bracing for Israel’s blows. The videos from past Gaza bombings, three in the past two years, reeled in our heads: Whole buildings tumbling down on the lives and families inside.
So everyone in Ramallah understood what that airplane sound above us that night meant.
I originally posted this poem on LinkedIn, but was banned a few days later, and didn’t bother reposting it elsewhere. I find it too painful.
Remember that, at the time I penned these words, all the tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza were ALIVE.
Some weren’t yet born, or were cradled in incubators at the Shifa hospital.
Refaat Alareer hadn’t written his poem yet, and children didn’t scribble wills.
Hind had 335 bullets fewer in her tiny body, and Sidra Hassouna still filled the sky with smiles.
Airplanes
October 7, 10:30 PM
What do I pray for, when planes roar overhead?
That the pilot will have a heart,
And not push the button?
That the plane will malfunction?
Fall from the sky,
Perhaps, on a stolen city?
An unlikely justice, divine?
That somehow, a homemade rocket will intercept an F-35?
That the bomb
Will not
Kill
Children,
Like every time before?
The planes roar overhead;
What is there left to pray?
Israeli airplanes had no reason to fly above the West Bank. That was psychological warfare!
It felt like we were locked up in one part of the concentration camp, and forced to hear a constant stream of shots from mass executions nearby.
The bombs must stop! Now!!
Free Palestine!
With love,
Ramsey Hanhan
Author, Fugitive Dreams
