After seeing the headline “Israelis uprooting olive trees with chainsaws and bulldozers”
I sit in the dew dawn of silence
prayer against the metal
gray hour
gray owl
to interrupt kingdom so quiet
my olives, my olives
kin & spray of dirt
whoever carries caskets to bear trees
shall inherit the kingdom
a kingdom and a goat
those poor stabbed goats
theft can be a shepherd
the sky someone’s steeple
and here the doctrine
that killed Palestinian people
down, down
head to earth
uproot the olive
the grape and almond
kingdom come
what could be done?
let loose snakes in the harvest
hear the hiss then crunch
clob clip
sons with guns
split lip
language undone
Note:
In 2019 the Trump administration coined the term “Pompeo Doctrine,” in which then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the U.S. would not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as "inconsistent with international law." Since then, settlers continue to attack Palestinians throughout this region, and a September 2021 news report described settlers killing and injuring Palestinian farmers’ goats in Masafer Yatta. While the Biden administration revoked the Pompeo Doctrine in February of 2024, some religious leaders argue against the settlements' illegality, invoking the Lord’s Prayer in support of settlement expansion.
S.M. Badawi is an Arab American poet and teacher whose work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cream City Review, Porter House Review, and many other journals. Her poetry has been featured in Poetry Daily and has been nominated for Best of the Net, Porter House Review Editor Prize, Nina Riggs Poetry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. She is a Tin House workshop alumna and has received fellowships and awards from Summer Literary Seminars and Florida Atlantic University. She currently teaches writing in the Pacific Northwest.