Di Baladna (Our Land), by Emtithal Mahmoud

[@paulafrancesgalvin]

Wonderfully moving. I showed it to my class of 10 year olds and they were really moved by it. It inspired them to write their own

[@alana6779]

Spoken with such feeling beautiful poem....food for thought!!

[@patricialavista2874]

Incredibly beautiful and powerful. It sums it up all. It should be (have been...) the Anthem for Cop26, as it is far more powerful than most introductory speeches I have heard so far to describe the situation. Maybe we forget to put more poetry in our lives, this would help too ...

[@abdalhalim2168]

I love you and love the way which you,er going to speak by it💝

[@dianamtnsinger5279]

Thank you; my heart aches; but I am hopeful

[@k2024-b8n]

Can you please publish the full lyrics of this wonderful poem here on these pages, thanks.

[@stefaniaeusepi8496]

If you are reading this, i forgive you. You have grown far from the heart of me, my child. Have lost the familiar love we held for one another in your first years of life. When you were young you marveled at the plants and critters that ran across my bosom You worshipped the water, swam up and down my rivers, drank from my rain. Laughed at each first snow, begged for sun on the cloudy days. You didn’t hesitate to sink your fingers into the mud of me and tickle loose little pebbles droplets, seedlings and worms. How you built a refuge for every wayward wanderer Lining the kitchen shelves with jars of lightning bugs and butterflies you drank the breeze from my trees, the honey, sap, gum with joy and ease. How you came to me resting your head at my tender hearth your weary body in my pockets: you loved me. You nurtured me before you knew what it was to nurture, tended me before you knew what it was. To tend tiller, sower, farmer, green thumbed little one. You knew me. Lately, you hurt me. You break and cut and tear into me and i forgive you for i am a part of you like your brothers and sisters before you and those who are close to me now. I forgive you. I forgive you again for the reaping you do with no intention to sow. Again for the waste and greed and gluttony. When you were young you asked me why they do this, once brothers and sisters staining the earth with the blood of your people, shaking apart the branches of your family tree, you losing ground and hope all in one fell swoop you turned to me, resting beneath the shade of date-palms and magnolias, you begged me to make sense of it all. All i could offer you then was a promise that wherever you would go you would find me but now there's not much left for me to promise. They’ve dug pits into my sides, have stolen the rubies, gold and diamonds. Maya placed in my thighs. I do all i can to heal but my weary body can't clear away the hurt so easily. My waters rush but do not soothe, the air in my lungs suffocates the little one. I cough and spew and gush and bruise and it will not heal. When a child of mine dies by my hands here in the long forgotten valleys of your youth, visitors come not of their own accord by necessity and i am made whole again. Abdulghani and Izdahara sink their hands into the mud of me saplings cling and i am whole again. Hatem builds monuments to my skies, captures the sun, channels the lightning and i am whole again. Luka and Layatu fill their home with fruit born of me, the children eat and grow and are healthy and i am whole again. Osman protests it isn't mine alone to mend he says. I need you to build and build again to make new to bring forth life from relentless earth, making an oasis of charred terrain, creating refuge from only scar tissue and lightning strikes. Let me be more to you than just a final resting place. Let me do more for you than call you home. Child of mine if you are reading this, i need you. -Your mother

[@josephikhenoba3289]

I will nominate her for Nobel Peace Prize 2024.

[@MuhammedMuhshifKaradan]

♥️🌸

[@kimrairon]

🌎💐