These last weeks, that one line from Rent has been going through my head — “the opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation.” There is, often, that question of how to create in such times, how to promote one’s work in such times, how to hold space for art in such times. An inherently Venusian question (which I address briefly here).
The Palestinian poet, novelist, and teacher, Hiba Abu Nada, created. One of her last poems, “Refuge,” written before she was murdered in an Israeli airstrike on October 20th, has been published in translation at Protean magazine and widely circulated. I encourage y’all to read it in full; here is the first stanza:
1.
I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocketfrom the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones who
change the rocket’s course
before it lands
with their smiles.
May her, and every artist and child’s memory, be a blessing.
all times are Eastern