We Are Grateful

POETRY FORMAT, 8 Sep 2025

Mazin Qumsiyeh – TRANSCEND Media Service

7 Sept 2025

We are grateful for those who resist and remain,
Who struggle through genocide, bearing the pain.
For doctors in Gaza who heal night and day,
Risking their lives so that others may stay.
For journalists daring to tell what is true,
Two hundred and fifty struck down as they do.
For martyrs whose courage still kindles the flame,
For survivors who rise and give hope with their name.
For friends in the city refusing to flee,
For millions who march, for the jailed yet free.
For hearts that stay open, for minds that will fight,
For Hind Rajab’s voice that was honored that night.
—-
We are grateful for meetings that circle the earth,
For the dream of one country, one land of true worth.
For networks that link us through fifty-plus lands,
For gifts of supporters, their hearts and their hands.
For staff and for volunteers steady and kind,
For children whose questions awaken the mind.
For gardens and museums where memory stays,
For prayers and good wishes that brighten our days.
For animals, plants that remind us we’re one,
For food and for water, for light of the sun.
For friendships enduring, unbroken, and strong,
That carry us forward, that lift us in song.
—
We are grateful for tyrants who showed us their face,
Their hatred, their greed, their corruption, their race.
For Trump and for Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and the rest,
Whose crimes strip the mask, put their lies to the test.
For trials that teach us endurance and care,
For joy in the sorrows we’re chosen to bear.
—-
We are grateful for parents who taught us the way,
To cherish the good, and to not go astray.
For family and friends who still walk by our side,
For ancestors’ struggles, their unbroken stride.
For birth in a land where my soul will remain,
Palestine’s soil, through the joy and the pain.
The Fertile Crescent, where rivers still flow,
The cradle of peoples all humanity know.
A crossroads of wisdom, of story, of seed,
A beacon of justice in humanity’s need.
The wind strips the mask from hypocrisy’s eyes,
Revealing the truth and unmasking the lies.

____________________________________________

Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org

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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 8 Sep 2025.

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