Hind Rajab 6 years old
(In memory of)
8/19/2024
Debbie Blane
I was
An
Ordinary girl
With a wonderful
And ordinary life
Until I was left
In a car
With my dead aunt and uncle
And four cousins.
The Israeli defense force
Promised me safe passage
And the two
Brave ambulance drivers who were
Sent to retrieve me
To take me to my anxiously waiting mother.
They had been promised safe passage
2.
Until.
Until.
The snipers killed me in the backseat
Of the car
And the ambulance drivers
In the ambulance
When we were all supposed to be
Set free.
I have become a famous six year old martyr
In the world
Because my mother weeps
And I am gone
From my beloved gaza.
Now that you know who I am
I will tell you about the ordinary object.
It is an olive wood spoon.
I used to help my mother cook
By stirring things in a pot
With an olive wood spoon.
Guess where that spoon came from?
My family used to have olive wood groves
Our trees were old
Some of them could be
I don’t know….
Well,
Thousands of years old.
Really.
Every year when the olives were picked
The loose olive wood was harvested
And kept to age
Then it was used to make oh so many
Beautiful
Things.
Like olive wood spoons
To stir my mother’s famous
Cooking
With.
Until.
Until.
Israel decided that the gaza strip
Could no longer breathe.
Trees have been
Destroyed
Pulled up by their roots
Chopped off at the bottom
Killed
Murdered
Like
Well, like
Me.
Have you ever held
An
Olive
Wood
Spoon?
?
?
They are beautiful.
Smooth.
The grain of the wood shows
And tells a story.
An ordinary object
That I held in my hand
That my father had carved
Just
For
Me
Out of the fallen
Branch
Of
An
Olive
Wood
Tree.
