Take a Stand (Excerpt)

How can I sit back,
And watch my people die,
Or worse,
Live in humiliation,
With no life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
How can I simply view,
The atrocities that my people are subjected to,
And say, "I don’t live there; I am here in the U.S."
But I am not here, with my heart, with my spirit,
Both my heart and spirit belong to Palestine,
The land of my forefathers, the land of olive trees,
The Dead Sea, Jerusalem,
The land of Birzeit, my home.
How can I sit back
And let foreigners steal my identity.
The land is not theirs, it never was,
And let me say this, it never will be
In my eyes and in my heart, spirit and mind,
Palestine is mine, and always will be,
And I am Palestine’s, I will always be,
In the rocks, the sea, the trees
Without it, I am not,
With it, I am.

-Isaac Kassis