You belong here.
They were always telling me I didn't.
Times I slipped between consonants
gave me away --
                      not your daughter.

Not enough,
            even if I stand for hours in uniform,
guarding memorial fires.

And at the blockades
the fields were singing to us
            beyond the blockades --
Not even the fields, the rocks themselves.

Some thin belonging
like mountain air

My grandfathers died in peace,
buried here in the stone hills.
The Eighteen bus line
twists through my palms --
At night
I ride between fears.
In the day the tools of war are heavy.

I don't trust those who say they hear
the land.
But who will whisper to us blessings?

What I need to hear
rustling of fingers,
great sweeping of leaves,
            a rain to break the chamsin
and the language of cracked earth:
Daughter, My Daughter,
You belong here.

What you need to hear from me --
How can I give what I don't have?
In Jericho I stopped to buy bottles of water.

We've haunted the landscape with war memorials.
We chase war criminals.
We practice evacuation to be ready when it comes:
the famous push into the sea.
We tune our radios to a channel that broadcasts silence.