Writing, loving, fearing, and enjoying flowers as resistance

Mahmoud Darwish, the voice of the Palestinian people, with this beautiful poem.

Palestinians are supposed to be dedicated to one subject -- liberating Palestine.

This is a prison.

We're human, we love, we fear death, we enjoy the first flowers of spring.

So to express this is resistance

against having out subject dictated to us.

If I write love poems,

I resist the conditions that don't allow me to write love poems.

Thinking in this way broadens the definition of resistance. it's what Palestinian call samoud, a steadfastness, a resistance against all odds.

I stole the poem from a trailer for a movie about Gaza called Where the Birds Should Fly - Mona's Story. See the trailer here: