Palestine…. Between Grapes and Sky

When the sunset whispers in the soul's ear
And when silence becomes richer than all noise
The heart needs a refuge to find itself
A refuge between sunlight and grapevines
Where every drop of perfume and every golden ray
Restores what time has ruined in us

Among the grapevines… when the soul escapes the noise of destruction to find its first Palestine
In a time when the noise has become louder than the truth
And faces shinier than their consciences
And slogans larger than the actions of their bearers
A person needs a place to escape this silent devastation
And whenever the days weigh me down with disappointments and scenes that exhaust the heart
I escape to that image left by Kahlil Gibran hanging in the consciousness
"Did you sit in the afternoon like me among the grapevines?"

The vine here is not just a tree
It is a small homeland
And it is also a moral mirror revealing the difference between what the land genuinely gives and what some humans distribute as illusions

When I sit among the grapevines
I feel that Palestine returns to its original form
Before burdening it with calculations
Before it tires from climbers on its pain
Before the daily concerns of people become the subject of speeches instead of a priority for action
There, in the sunset pouring gold over the clusters
The land regains its true language
The language of the farmer
The language of honest toil
The language of mothers who have baked patience for generations
And the language of men who have preserved the meaning of homeland in their daily sweat

In that moment, I understand that our problem was never with the land
For the land is more loyal than anyone
Nor with the people who still carry their homeland in their hearts despite weariness
But with that distortion that afflicted some minds
When the position for some became a ladder for influence, not a means for service
And when the moral compass got lost in the chaos of interests
So the citizen pays with his spirit the price of every mistake
And with his day the price of every delay
And with his hope the price of every narrow calculation

Yet, I do not lose faith
For the vine that withstands the wind
And silently gives its fruit
Tells us that this homeland is still capable of bearing pure men
And ideas larger than interests
And a phase where Palestine returns to its original meaning
A home for the people, not a burden on them

From among the grapevines
I see Ramallah washing in the evening light
And I see Jerusalem raising its pain to the sky like a prayer
And I see Hebron carrying in its vines the memory of patience
And I see Nablus emitting the scent of history and dignity
And I see Jenin sprouting from its soil an unbreakable will
And I see Bethlehem walking leisurely like an eternal birth hymn
And I see Jericho whispering to the palm trees the secrets of the first beginnings
And I see Tulkarem embracing its green plains like a mother holding her children
And I see Salfit raising its olive trees high like a banner of steadfastness
And I see Gaza rising from the ashes like a poem that does not die
And I see Yafa exuding the scent of the sea, oranges, and longing
And I see Haifa leaning on the blue of the waves like a bride whose beauty does not fade
And I see Akka preserving in its stones the echo of history and the strength of the sea
And I see every inch of this land whispering to us
That devastation is not fate
And that ugliness, no matter how long it lasts, cannot defeat beauty

That is why I write
I write because I refuse to let despair become culture
Or for people's disappointments to turn into something ordinary
I write because Palestine deserves faces that resemble its vineyards
Sincere, fruitful, and rooted in the soil, not in interests

Here among the grapevines, I find not only my comfort
But I find the Palestine we all dream of
Palestine of truth, justice, beauty, and humanity
For when the soul returns to its purity, the homeland returns to its light.