"Your Village," by Elana Bell (2012)

Author: Elana Bell

Bell, Elana. “Your Village.” Poems for Reflecting on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, Moving Traditions, 14 May 2021, www.movingtraditions.org/poems-for-reflecting/.

1 Elana Bell is a Brooklyn-based poet, educator, and facilitator of sacred rituals. She is the author two books of poetry: Mother Country (BOA Editions in 2020) and Eyes, Stones (LSU Press 2012). The following poem is from Eyes, Stones, a collection that was inspired by interviews conducted in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and America. Listen to Elana Bell perform the poem here.

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3 Once in a village that is burning
      because a village is always somewhere burning

4 And if you do not look because it is not your village
      it is still your village

5 In that village is a hollow child
      You drown when he looks at you with his black, black eyes

6 And if you do not cry because he is not your child
      he is still your child

7 All the animals that could run away have run away
      The trapped ones make an orchestra of their hunger

8 The houses are ruin      Nothing grows in the garden
      The grandfather’s grave is there      A small stone

9 under the shade of a charred oak      Who will brush off the dead
      leaves      Who will call his name for morning prayer

10 Where will they — the ones who slept in this house and ate from this dirt — ?

DMU Timestamp: October 24, 2023 13:53