In my mind
I’ve freed Palestine
Envisioned a dream
That just needs to be seen
Olive trees and fields of figs
Orange groves
That lead to our roads
No blocks filled with cops
No ten-year-olds shot
Freedom
Is what I got
I understand my grandmother’s plan
To live on her bought and paid-for land
And though it isn’t in her hands
It remains in her heart
Every time another is killed
We go back to the start
1948: the date you make us remember
The star and scars of David
And we’re the ones who’ve hated?
We’ve been raped and berated
By bullets and forced “immigration”
Squatting and settling
Left wrestling with the best Zionism has to offer
While the US fills its coffers
We’re seen as monsters
Our people blow up in pain
Black-eyed and half-insane
Wouldn’t you be?
If an Israeli bullet penetrated your child’s brain?
I envision Palestine in my mind
With the “chosen” frozen in time
To realize their morality’s blind
To take back generations of crime
And put an end to Apartheid
How many kids sit and wish
They could be labeled other than a terrorist
To exist is to resist!
Reads the graffiti in their cities
Give them chalk instead of rocks
They’ll use the blackboards
If you let them go to school
Give them chalk instead of rocks
Instead you bulldoze the block
Destroy their homes
Palestine is what you call the “no building zone”
But you can’t bulldoze our minds
Every time we’ll rise through ashes
Like Cassius Clay
We’ll bob and weave for infinity
There is no divinity
In bombing our cities
Setting up committees to treat us differently
We’re from Falasteen
The land where dreams are made
So just remember one thing
One day the bells of freedom will ring
And you’ll see me smiling
Loving life in Palestine
Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian American poet and activist. He is editor of Poets for Palestine. Visit his Web site Poetic Injustice at <www.poeticinjustice.net/>.
The video shows Kanazi reciting “To Exist Is to Resist” at the 3 January 2009 Gaza Massacre protest in New York City.