Omar Yaghi
you won the Nobel Prize
That’s okay.
The world cheered,
but I kept thinking
of the land that raised you.
A land where citizenship exists without citizens,
and citizens live without citizenship.
You were Palestine
and then you became philistine
between Palestine and philistine
was belonging and exile.
You crossed the sea,
became a citizen of the US
far, far away from the dust
which had settled on your palm
like chemistry.
You then became Arabian
a citizen yet again
a man who had no country
now has two.
Tell me, Omar,
were you crowned with citizenship
because you were rootless,
or because you bloomed
in the gardens of the powerful?
I see blood seeping
from the soil of Palestine
every day,
every minute,
like each breath of the world
as witness.
Tell me Omar
you want a witness from your community?
yes you have it
it lies east to the Red Sea
but the blood,
they say,
is not red enough.
Omar Yaghi
forgive me
if this poem wounds you.
Did you ever taste sand, Omar?
the way children in Palestine do.
hunger eats them.
They say your discovery is unique
it can bring water to deserts
Can it bring food to Gazans
where you belonged
and now you don’t.
