In the Breach: A Mothers Witness
I became a mother
in a house of grief and grace,
where Palestine was etched
into each story, voice, and face.
It lived inside my father-in-law,
in all he did not say,
in the wounds he carried in his soul
that never went away.
Stolen from his family
because a thief desired his land,
he returned a shattered witness
no one could fully understand.
I became a mother there,
and something in me grew,
a knowing that their pain was mine,
their children were mine too.
Then war came down around us
with its iron, flame, and dread,
and the world I thought was solid
broke apart above my head.
In our frantic rush to safety,
a soldier boy appeared,
an Iraqi child in uniform
with shaking voice and tears.
He beat upon my car window,
then cast his weapon down,
and begged me,
“Tell America
we do not want this now.”
From that moment
something splintered,
something false was stripped away.
I sank into the eyes of one
no empire could portray
as a monster
or a menace
or some dark, inhuman other,
I saw a frightened child
who could have easily been my brother.
Then the bombs began their screaming,
and the buildings swayed with fright,
and we fled into the shadows
of a long and dreadful night.
For weeks, strangers hid and sheltered me
as danger lurked below,
and they shared their food and water
when they scarcely had their own.
They did not see an enemy.
They did not turn away.
They only hoped I’d live long enough
to tell the truth one day—
that they were people,
loving people,
trying hard to stay alive,
trying hard to guard their children,
trying hard just to survive.
In my heart it became impossible
to believe in us and them,
not after watching empire feed
on children, women, men.
I saw too clearly
how our lives
are all bound up together,
and once that truth broke through in me,
it changed my life forever.
I took my children with me
where the truth stood up and spoke,
to the marches and the vigils
where my silence first was broke.
We laid down shoes for vanished lives, then rode with purpose clear,
Four thousand five hundred miles by bike to say the cost is here.
With my eleven-year-old beside me
and my twin girls still so small,
we rode across a wounded land,
praying love could reach us all.
And everywhere the people softened
when they saw those little faces,
as if their presence called them back
to gentler, kinder places.
I raised my children on the frontlines
where the state comes for the poor,
at the border, in the streets,
confronting politicians at the door.
In the streets again for Gaza,
because silence feeds the flame,
while families just like ours are bombed
and buried without name.
When every blast that splits the dark
is funded in our name,
no excuse from any throne
can wash away that shame.
And still resilience lives within us,
fierce and stubborn, bright, and true,
in those of us who hold the line
while the sky is torn in two,
in the prayers that rise unbroken,
in the bread that still is shared,
in the proud stories of the people
who remind us why we dared.
Of everything I’ve learned throughout
I know this to be true:
what is done to any one of us
echoes the whole world through.
And until the bombs stop falling,
until everyone is free,
you will find me in the breach
where a Mother has to be.
Fight Like A Mother: A Celebration of Resistance and Resilience.
A Mother’s Day Poetry Collection