forgive us our daily forgetfulness 🌓

a prose poem for dark times

lebanese poet zeina hashem beck wrote: may our martyrs rest in power. may they forgive us our daily forgetfulness. in arabic the word for human, insaan, shares a root with forgetfulness—nisyaan. to forget is to be human. maybe the wisdom of islam’s five daily prayers offers an antidote to that forgetfulness, calling us persistently into acts of remembrance. the root of my friendship with rand lives in language, our first moment of connection getting lost on the way to the south of the west bank, speaking of poetry and literature. last week she taught me: injustice and darkness share an etymology in arabic.

i went to italy last week, seven days in napoli. i swam in the crystal blue waters of the mediterranean; the last time i touched this sea was in palestine. how many histories, how many fates has this sea witnessed? a volcano looms over the city, promising to erupt again. for now, the city rests.