Three people come to my door...
A Poem by Elianne El-Amyouni
II.
Three people come to my door.
The first is always frightened, comes in crying.
I hold him, console him, “the rockets only passover,
it is not our land they’re after,
not our blood they want,
not yet.”
The second barges interrupting, angry and indignant,
Sparkling with holy rage like
A saint sent straight from the mouth of god.
She says, “all land is my land, all people my people,
and if the enemy is thirsty for blood, let it be mine to quench them,”
I tell her to be calm, there are already too many fighters,
That there is peace to be protected here, first.
Then struts in the third, steps soft like a cat, silent smirk on their lips.
They remind us that the best thing about this lonely blue dot is its sunsets.
They say the light wages endless war against itself
And is the only place of peace in this empty life.
They tell us how today, the smoke of a burning bush turns its orange hues
To mauve, lighting streams left in the wake of jets,
Hanging like a tinted rainbow.
My children are confused.
They don’t understand that the land is our body,
That death is our salvation,
That the enemy is no where but in our hearts
Elianne El-Amyouni is a Lebanese-Canadian writer, lecturer, activist, doctor of philosophy, and content creator with over 1 million subscribers across platforms (with Tiktok as main platform). Her PhD is a study of political identity expression in contemporary Palestinian hip-hop, and her content and research is focused around narratives of identity, difference, and resistance. Elianne is a columnist for two Arabic magazines, Al Nahar and Rehla, has published short stories and poetry in literary journals including The Temz Review and Litro UK, and has self-published a collection of poetry entitled Quickies.
