A Prayer for Palestine

This painting was created by Duniyana Al-Amoor, a 22 year-old artist from Gaza who was killed in her room by an Israeli air strike in 2022.  

I have been at a loss for words with regard to the horrors happening in Palestine. I finally took to paper, and this is what fell out. I have deep and enduring connections to Palestine through friends who are family abroad. I thought of them when writing this piece. 

When I pray for Palestine, I am scared that no words come out.

Instead, 

My chest tightens and my arms ache, 

my eyes swell with tears that sit heavy inside my lids – too afraid to fall because they know once they do, they won’t stop.

And if they don’t stop, how will I see? I need to see for I am across the sea in a home with a roof and food, a blanket covering my feet. This distance is not an excuse for blindness or pious rhetorical violence.

I pray for Palestine as though I am drinking water for the first time in the morning,

It is more than the satiation of a mental thirst or for sake of soothing a headache,

It is a holy act, instinctual in its affirmation of life, existence, and humanity. It affirms the body. It affirms breath.

I sip the water as I sip the prayer; again, no words surface as my eyes remain closed, clenched, as my thoughts run chaotically through my mind, torch in hand.

They land on a child, no older than two, with stone soot on their head. They are being held by the hands of many whose faces are obscure much like the child’s gender, for the dust conceals every piece of clothing, every part of their tiny little body, 

Except for their eyes. And in their eyes, God is full and stares back.

My prayer for Palestine reaches back through centuries when the land knew not wars but grass, trees, and water.   

Where feet covered in sand danced under the moon as the midnight heat showered down as though it was noonday. 

My wordless prayer does not know geographical boundaries or the color of flags. 

My prayer takes temporary shelter in the hostile home of language but does not stay long, for it cannot be contained by the very tool used to quiet it. 

Not feeling safe in language, my prayer rests briefly in silent words and images in my mind, but soon departs because it cannot by nature share space with the very place that has the capacity to hold human thoughts unrelated to prayer itself.

My prayer for Palestine is so big, so huge, it is unfathomable. It takes my breath, rocks my body, and pulses through my blood. 

My prayer makes me feel as though I am standing on the edge of a cliff.

Despite its proximity to the ledge, the prayer does not jump, even though its inertia brings it to the brink, 

For the prayer itself loves life, radically and unconditionally. 

And for this prayer, where words don’t exist and its truth can only be felt, to love life means to love Palestine.  

I used to be scared that no words came out when I prayed for Palestine. Why am I speechless when so much could be said?

I know now, though, through body and not by intellect, that prayer does not always appear through words or language, of which I am short on, or even tears, of which I have many. 

My prayer for Palestine is my body, my breath, and my blood I feel I may combust. 

My prayer for Palestine will never be captured nor will it ever be tamed, 

For prayers of freedom and love do not rest and have no end.