O Samaritan… Yours Are the Sword and the Blood
Poem by: Youssef Hattini, Palestine

We emerged from the fragile bottle,
O you who wander in a land where even the flowers are your foes,
In a land where even the birds turn against you,
Yet the nightingale sings to us among its trees.

We emerged from the fragile bottle—
Return, lost one,
To the illusion of your sword-shaped Talmud,
And carry your legacy,
Your calf, O Samaritan,
To whichever land you please—
Far from the scent.

You desecrate this space, O stranger.
You desecrate its Isra’
And the purity of its Mi‘raj.
So set off toward your wandering,
Do not blend falsehood with light,
Do not redraw geography by the myth of your history.

Return to the Mishnah and Gemara,
Wrap yourself in your sword-shaped Talmud
In the bitter cold of your ruin,
And do not approach where Canaan tells our story.

O stranger:
Tiberias, Haifa, and Jaffa are ours,
Safed is ours, where Jarmaq crowns the book of citadels,
Ar-Ramla, Lydda, Acre are ours,
And a wall defends both the serene plain and mountain
From hyenas,
From the sea’s convulsions.
A wall repels the tyrants,
While Nablus ignites the invaders’ night.

Yours are the sword and the blood,
The path through dark fogs,
The shadow of ruin,
The dream of a mirage.

But water is ours, O Samaritan,
It is the tear—our share from the book of wailing,
The memory of siege and massacre in Jenin,
And Beisan, dressing the youth of defiance for a wedding
In Jerusalem’s fury.

Tulkarem wraps the wounds of the Galilee,
The vines of Hebron march
To a fig tree in Ramallah,
Guarding the dream of the Naqab.

So take your ruin, O stranger,
And leave the sky of Palestine
To those arriving from the dawn.

Leave the reed fields behind,
Take what you wish of flesh and bone,
Of soul and body—
Crush bones,
Sadden my days,
Displace orphans—
You’ve feasted enough on blood,

So leave us, O stranger,
Our deep wounds.

Take your false, tyrannical Samson
To destroy more ruins,
But leave God’s sign safe in our trust.
Return to your wilderness, O Samaritan,
And leave behind as much bleeding as you wish
In the ache of the side.

Then go forth in your book of ruin wherever you will,
Far from Jerusalem
And Nazareth.