‘I pray because I do not know what else to do’: Writer Jerry Pinto’s poem for Palestine

Don’t speak until you understand the issue.
I’ve heard this said often because
I am often the person saying it.
To unpick your history, Palestine, would
Take more time than anyone has.
For when babies are being picked off by bombs
There is no more time.
The sands of the desert have rushed
Through the hourglasses and the countdown
Ten…nine…eight is way past Blam!
Now every phone is screaming
But no one is listening.
This is what makes history: the Unlistening.

I write this is a quiet room
Outside it is green and still.
Trees by God. Lawns by man.
Breakfast is done: Eggs, toast
Coffee, two cups, six sugars,
Papaya, brown bread and
A reasonable amount of butter.
The whine of the bombs
mocks my eggs over-easy.

It is so easy to blame Israel.
But somewhere in this country
The State deploys bulldozers to eat dreams
And human sacrifices are made to God,
The Sub-Continental Dietician.
If I blame Israel, then I
Stand accused for India

I want to blame Netanyahu
I see evil in his face
Because it is the face of a man
And I have the eyes of an accuser.
But behind Netanyahu and Biden
and Rishi and Olaf stand us:
We, the people.
We, the complicit.
The Islamophobes who cannot send bombs
But lend moral support instead?
They are our camouflage.

I want now to name villains and victims.
I want to draw a circle around the good, you and me.
I am, of course, the centre of the circle.
I have boycotted the brands that support Israel,
I have followed the right Instagram pages.
I have recorded myself reading a Gaza monologue.
Now I sit in judgement of you.
I declare you bad because you have not done
Enough in this moral crisis.

I am reminded now of a younger Jerry
He had no podium and no mike.
He had two large ears he turned into the wind.
He once heard Terentius say: Homo sum.
Humani nil a me alienum puto.
He heard it and he stood up
It was a library but he stood up.
He wanted to cross time and meet
Terentius in 170BCE or thereabouts
and hug him and say: That is it.
That is just it. Say it again, Terry,
Say it for me. Say it for all of us.
And then sit down here and tell me
How do I do this?

He once heard Jesus say:
Love one another as I have loved you.
Easy-peasy-lemony-squeezy, he thought.
If it’s people in the abstract.
If it’s the neighbour who moves furniture at three am?
If it’s the relative who grabs your property?
Now that’s another ball game.

That Jerry heard: For he has created us
Into tribes and nations, that we may
Know each other, not despise each other.
Then Qabil slew Habil and here we are.

That Jerry read: Vasudaivam kutumbakam
But he wondered about the first family of
His own lineage. About all those families in
the Bible, the exile of Hagar, the cheating of
Isaac, the revenge on Absalom, the selling of
Jacob, and you can see how carefully
I am stepping here, not mentioning those
homicidal cousins who ended up on a battlefield.

This Jerry here? This one knows what an ideal is.
He knows why we coined that word.
it keeps us from being our own accusers.
We say: it’s an ideal. (*sighs in relief*)
We say: No one can live up to an ideal.
We lapse into inertia.
Our hands are bloodied.
We are Palestine.
But we are also Israel.
When we pray for Palestine, and I do, I pray believing prayers,
Roman Catholic prayers, Jewish psalms, Vedic shlokas,
Prayers of metta, atheist prayers,
whatever I know, whatever I can think of,
I pray for Israel too.

I pray for the men who sign bombs.
I pray for the women who pose for selfies
In front of the skull of a home.

I pray for me.
For I am Palestine.
And I am Israel.

I shudder as I say this.
I do not want to believe this.
U don’t think I even mean it.
I want Terentius’ words to
Go back into the ideal box.

For in the space of the ideal
There would be a lament loud enough
To make a heavenly intervention
And bring Free Will to a halt.

Then justice would come rolling down like a mighty river
And cover the land with fresh soil from Soul Mountain
Those dead babies would open their eyes and begin
To wail and their mothers would be allowed the luxury
Of being irritated with them.
The olive trees would be replanted,
The lemon trees would blossom.

And the land would remind us:
You do not own me.
Does the grass own me?
You are grass to be mown
By the Sickle of Time.
We would listen. Because history has ended.
The unlistening has ended.
We would listen to the land
The walls would come down.
And tents would rise
All of humanity would nick itself
And see a ruby glowing on its skin,
and see how much we are the same
and how in our blood our mother’s
Mitochondria dances to the rhythm
Of Adenosine Triphosphate.

Wait.
Hold on.

I want free will for myself.
I, at the centre of the circle of good;
I, determiner of the radius of that circle;
I would know how to use it.
You would not.

Here we go again.

Still, I pray for peace.
I pray for peace in Manipur.
I pray for peace in Ukraine.
I pray for peace n Myanmar.
I pray for peace in the Maghreb.
I pray for all the conflict zones
I don’t know about.
I pray that my ignorance will not
Become a talisman.
I pray that my mind will be stilled.
I pray that my prayer will be acceptable
In the ears of Whoever is receiving it.
I pray because I do not know what else to do.
I am sorry, Palestine, this is not very much.
But it is what I have.