THE WATERFRONT - FREE GAZA

Good Morning Gaza by Mahmoud Darwish
Good morning Gaza,
get up, drink my coffee, and rise.
Our funeral has arrived.
Good morning Gaza,
get up and recite
the verse of return
to a land we have carried
like a tattoo on the hand.
Good morning, you stranger to your house.
Not all God's earth is Rome
even if your flesh is a window-shop
for the masters of words. Your flesh, is it Christ's brittle bread?
Good morning, you offering on the altar of the Mediterranean basin,
cut your path short. You're a prayer rug for idolators,
a cave of ancient civilizations, a tent for bedouin rulers,
you're the armor of the poor and the alms of millionaires.
They auction you as surplus to the market's demands.
And you are the dream of Palestinians on the streets,
a river of bodies in one.