{"id":81816,"date":"2016-10-31T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=81816"},"modified":"2016-10-23T18:31:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T17:31:10","slug":"the-struggle-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/the-struggle-within\/","title":{"rendered":"The Struggle Within"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mazin<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Facing life\u2019s challenges and insecurity
\nThe heart yearns for serenity<\/p>\n

How can we ignore the oppressor\u2019s meanness
\nAnd simply understand his weakness<\/p>\n

With so much deception
\nWhat is to change perception?<\/p>\n

We struggle to see the positives
\nEven as we are flooded with negatives<\/p>\n

A child hungers amid flies and vultures
\nWhile billionaires invest in ventures<\/p>\n

Zionists steal our lands
\nAnd profit from our raised hands<\/p>\n

Tossing and turning in their dreary night
\nTheir biggest fear is truth coming to light<\/p>\n

The corrupt rule in Ramallah
\nThe weak put faith in Allah<\/p>\n

Within you feed the good wolf more
\nIf you do not want the bad one to score<\/p>\n

Does the struggle within have winners
\nOr is it only in the case of the sinners?<\/p>\n

The righteous are also struggling
\nTheir caring hardly a blessing<\/p>\n

In darkness, creating, and sheltering light
\nIs not a life of ease or of delight<\/p>\n

burden hard to carry in sickness or in health
\nthe (good) struggle goes on till the last breath<\/p>\n

\u201cjoyful participation in the sorrows of world\u201d
\nBuddhists had it right \u2013 participation a key word<\/p>\n

From good will and good deeds
\nWe are counseled that joy springs seeds<\/p>\n

We are advised to take time
\nTo appreciate the sublime<\/p>\n

For us Palestinians, it is harder to reason
\nAfter decades of colonization and treason<\/p>\n

though words easy to say, we still struggle to understand
\nand even harder to plan: How we continue to withstand?<\/p>\n

How we have resilience
\nHow we create persistence<\/p>\n

Perhaps what sustains us is goodness all around
\nAnd the beauty of this hallowed ground<\/p>\n

Perhaps we see divine in all of us
\nnot just Palestinian baby Jesus<\/p>\n

we see it in birds singing early mornings
\neven bats hunting insects evenings<\/p>\n

we see it in poor honest unemployed
\nin families and children when joyed<\/p>\n

we see it in smiles and stretched hands
\nin the rythm of seasons in ancient lands<\/p>\n

we see it in memories of Karameh victory
\nand all those who are symbols of bravery<\/p>\n

we see it in forgotten graves of massacred
\nand in the hunger strikes of the incarcerated<\/p>\n

we see it in a smile of dabka girls who carry genes
\nof their ancestral Canaanitic queens<\/p>\n

we hear it in the rhythm of tabla and oud *
\nthe call of the athan**, church bells, and even silent sumoud<\/p>\n

we smell it aroma of tabboun za\u2019atar ***
\ntaste it apricots, guava, figs, and loz akhdar****<\/p>\n

we taste it in zibda baladiya***** with mountain honey
\nand in herbal medicines curing the worst agony<\/p>\n

Countless generations passed in the arms of mother Palestine
\nbabies from Issa to the Ahmed of maddonnas divine<\/p>\n

Our clock will end soon and we are no more
\nAs we join all those departed who struggled before<\/p>\n

We bequeeth to our children beauty and burden
\nThoughts pass as the plants leave their seeds in the garden<\/p>\n

the secret to life is love and suffer grandfather told us
\nyet, the dust of billions of forgotten ancestors remind us<\/p>\n

as we breathe it and eat it that we mortals must have humility
\nand that humility added to struggle and love equals serenity<\/p>\n

the old country song says: in the end matters only kindness
\nthis old country man says: humility and love can conquer our madness<\/p>\n

\u201cStay human\u201d Vittorio Arrigoni said
\nIn Palestine \u201cKeep the hope alive\u201d was echoed
\n———————————–
\n*tabla and oud: eastern musical instruments corresponding to drum and guitar
\n**athan: muslim call to prayer
\n***tabboun za\u2019atar: bread of traditional kiln with thyme
\n****loz akhdar: green almonds
\n*****Zibda baladiya: A country butter made from goat milk<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh is a member of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>, author of <\/em>Sharing the Land of Canaan and <\/em>Popular Resistance in Palestine. He is a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem.<\/em> http:\/\/palestinenature.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facing life\u2019s challenges and insecurity
\nThe heart yearns for serenity
\nHow can we ignore the oppressor\u2019s meanness
\nAnd simply understand his weakness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}