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Fifty Years On / Stones in an Unfinished Wall 1. Fifty years on I am trying to tell the story of what was lost before my birth the story of what was there
blossoms sifting to the ground like snow quickly melting
before tears turned to disbelief disbelief to anguish anguish to helplessness helplessness to rage rage to despair before the cup was filled raised forcibly to our lips fifty years on I am trying to tell the story of what we are still losing 2. I am trying to find a home in history but there is no more space in the books for exiles the arbiters of justice have no time for the dispossessed without credentials and what good are words when there is no page for the story?
of four hundred eighteen villages emptied, razed but cactus still rims the perimeters emblem of what will not stay hidden In the Jaffa district alone: Al-'Abbasiyya Abu Kishk Bayt Dajan Biyar 'Adas Fajja Al-Haram Ijlil al-Qibliyya Ijlil al-Shamaliyya al-Jammasin al-Gharbi al-Jammasin al-Sharqi Jarisha Kafr 'Ana al-Khayriyya al-Mas'udiyya al-Mirr al-Muwaylih Ranitya al-Safiriyya Salama Saqiya al-Sawalima al-Shaykh Muwannis Yazur all that remains a scattering of stones and rubble across a forgotten landscape fifty years on the words push through
The immensity of loss shrouds everything in despair we seek the particular light angling gently in single rays the houses of Dayr Yasin were built of stone, strongly built with thick walls a girls' school a boys' school a bakery two guest-houses a social club a thrift fund three shops four wells two mosques a village of stone cutters a village of teachers and shopkeepers an ordinary village with a peaceful reputation until the massacre carried out without discriminating among men and women children and old people in the aftermath light remembers light searches out the hidden places fills every crevice light peers through windows slides across neatly swept doorsteps finds the hiding places of the children light slips into every place where the villagers were killed the houses, the streets, the doorways light traces the bloodstains light glints off the trucks that carried the men through the streets like sheep before butchering light pours into the wells where they threw the bodies light seeks out the places where sound was silenced light streams across stone light stops at the quarry 5. near Qisraya, circa 1938 a fisherman leans forward, flings his net across a sea slightly stirred by wind to his left land tumbles rocky blurred to his right sky is hemmed by an unclear horizon (ten years before the Nakbeh -- the future already closing down) 6. fifty years later shock still hollows the throats of those driven out without water, we stumbled into the hills a small child lay beside the road sucking the breast of its dead mother outside Lydda soldiers ordered everyone to throw all valuables onto a blanket one young man refused almost casually, the soldier pulled up his rifle shot the man he fell, bleeding and dying his bride screamed and cried he fell to the earth they fell in despair to the earth the earth held them the earth soaked up their cries their cries sank into the soil filtered into underground streams fifty springs on their voices still rise from the earth fierce as the poppies that cry from the hills each spring in remembrance 7. some stories are told in passing barely heard in the larger anguish among those forced out was a mother with two babies one named Yasmine and another whose name no one remembers her life so short even its echo is forgotten the nameless child died on the march it was a time of panic no one could save a small girl and so her face crumpled lost beneath the weight of earth I know only that she loved the moon that lying ill on her mother's lap she cried inconsolably wanted to hold it in her hands
8. the river floods its banks littering the troubled landscape we pick our way amid shards heir to a generation that broke their teeth on the bread of exile that cracked their hearts on the stone of exile necks bent beneath iron keys to absent doors their lamentations an unhealed wound I was forced to leave my village but the village refused to abandon me my blood is there my soul is flying in the sky over the old streets fifty years on
9. the walls were torn down long ago homes demolished rebuilding forbidden but the stones remain someone dug them from the soil with bare hands carried them across the fields someone set the stones in place on the terraced slope someone planted trees, dug wells someone still waits in the fields all night humming the old songs quietly someone watches stars chip darkness into dawn someone remembers how stone holds dew through the summer night how stone waits for the thirsty birds Lisa Suhair Majaj The italicized sections of "Fifty Years On/ Stones in an Unfinished Wall" are taken, in most cases verbatim, from various historical and journalistic sources, including Walid Khalidi's All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Washington D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992), the Deir Yassin OnLine Information Center (http://www.deiryassin.org/), Father Audeh Rantisi's Blessed are the Peacemakers: The History of a Palestinian Christian, and Reuters news reports. First published in Ripe Guava: Voices of Women of Color (Fall 1999-Spring 2000). | 
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