She trembles, yet she does not flinch or cry out. The planes roar above her head like stubborn flies,
However, she still does not lift her eyes from the bowl of lentils. I, who once believed myself to be a man, shake every day.
I ask myself:
What if the house collapses suddenly?
What if a tank approaches our doorstep?
What if my mother disappears beneath the rubble, and all that remains of her voice is a colored scarf tangled between the stones?
My mom does not ask such questions.
She knows that death is a stubborn guest and that fear lengthens the road toward “him”. She mocks me and says:
“Look son, death in my own home is kinder.”
I am the one torn into pieces. I live in exile, not in a geographical sense, but rather in that feeling of desire to protect her, however, I am helpless because I know I cannot. I look forward for a little miracle to happen; a bird who spreads its wings like a secret passage, or a cloud that descends to lift her away.
No money, no refuge, no hand extended, no open sky. Only a head full of questions gasping me like dogs.
My mother is there, and I am here. She is a mountain, and I am her trembling shadow. She is the survival itself, and I am the thought of vanishing. Each night I sleep with dust in my mouth, as if rehearsing her absence before it comes.
O God!
Why did You make mothers heavier than mountains, and sons, softer than a leaf in the wind of fear?!
My mother is there, and I am here. She sits like a trunk of an eternal olive tree preparing the teapot to put on the fire while the planes move in circles above her head. She whispers to herself:
“I am from here, and I will not move elsewhere.”
I argue with myself at the threshold of loss. I realize that the distance between us is not measured by kilometers, but rather by fate. She lives in the heart of the “storm” and does not tremble, while I am away of it and I shake. My mom knows that fear is a trick.
She asks, what can fear add to death, then laughs. Her laughter is like an ancient stone in a broken standing wall. I look for a way to lift her from this destiny, bigger than any love, strength, or homeland. I want to make her wings and build her a ladder from poems. I want to hide behind the prayer and become a boat which sails her away from the ruins. However, I know that death is smarter than all of us.
I know that defeat is not only losing a battle but rather watching your mother facing it alone while you cannot keep away the dust from her shoulders. What is left for me to do is to write to my friends, to the world, to you God: I want to save my mother, not only from death. I do not want to lose her laughter which sounds like all the countries in the world. She is not only a mother. She is the last wall I lean upon, and the remaining guardian at the gate of my name. She is Gaza. The earth has never made another like her.
Raed Shniowrah
11/09/2025
