Mosab Abu Toha > Quotes

“In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.

Every time a bomb falls, every time shrapnel hits our graves,

every time the rubble piles up on our heads,

we are awakened from our temporary death.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear
BY MOSAB ABU TOHA
For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD

i

When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.

You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.

When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Sir, we are not welcome anywhere. Only cemeteries don’t mind our bodies. We no longer look for Palestine. Our time is spent dying. Soon, Palestine will search for us, for our whispers, for our footsteps, our fading pictures fallen off blown-up walls.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“A book that doesn’t mention my language or my country, and has maps of every place except for my birthplace, as if I were an illegitimate child on Mother Earth. Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“The houses were not Hamas. The kids were not Hamas. Their clothes and toys were not Hamas. The neighborhood was not Hamas. The air was not Hamas. Our ears were not Hamas. Our eyes were not Hamas. The one who ordered the killing, the one who pressed the button thought only of Hamas.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“PALESTINE A–Z
A
An apple that fell from the table on a dark evening when man-made lightning flashed through the kitchen, the streets, and the sky, rattling the cupboards and breaking the dishes.

“Am” is the linking verb that follows “I” in the present tense when I am no longer present, when I’m shattered.

B
A book that doesn’t mention my language or my country, and has maps of every place except for my birthplace, as if I were an illegitimate child on Mother Earth.

Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“They once said Palestine will be free tomorrow. When is tomorrow? What is freedom? How long does it last?”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“I leave the door to my room open, so the words in my books,
the titles, and names of authors and publishers,
could flee when they hear the bombs.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“Am” is the linking verb that follows “I” in the present tense when I am no longer present, when I’m shattered.

(Page 9).”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Even your shadow will abandon you
When there is no light.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“In Gaza, you can find a man planting a rose in the hollow space of an unexploded tank shell, using it as a vase.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“A group of mute people
were talking sign.
When a bomb fell,
they fell silent.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“At fifth grade, I visit the school library. On a wall by the door, a poster claims, “If you read books, you live more than one life.” Now I’m thirty and whenever I look at faces around me, old or young, on each forehead I read: “If you live in Gaza, you die several times.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“Don't ever be surprise to see a rose shoulder up among the ruins of the house. This is how we survived.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“A father wakes up at night, sees the random colors on the walls drawn by his four-year-old daughter. The colors are about four feet high. Next year, they would be five. But the painter has died in an air strike. There are no colors anymore. There are no walls.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986. The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“When I was asked to fill out a form for my U.S. J-1 visa application, my country, Palestine, was not on the list. But lucky for me, my gender was.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“People say silence is a sign of consent. What if I’m not allowed to speak, my tongue severed, my mouth sewn shut?”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Sir, we are not welcome anywhere. Only cemeteries don’t mind our bodies.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“The lemon in a poem, it might be the same lemon I saw on the tree; when he’s talking about the sun, it’s the same sun. I’m invited to notice and enjoy things that I usually can’t see when I’m afraid. So, to me, as a reader and poet, poetry can show things I never saw before. It also can bring my attention to something I saw but never enjoyed. And lastly, it assures me that I live on the same earth that Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others inhabited.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Yaffa is known around the world for its oranges. My grandmother, Khadra, tried to take some oranges with her in 1948, but the shelling was heavy. The oranges fell on the ground, the earth drank their juice. It was sweet, I’m sure.

(Page 13).”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Gaza is a city where tourists gather to take photos next to destroyed buildings or graveyards.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Knotting poems from shards of glass, concrete, steel bars, isn’t easy. Sometimes my hands bleed. My gloves get burnt every time”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“The drone’s buzzing sound, the roar of an F-16, the screams of bombs falling on houses, on fields, and on bodies, of rockets flying away— rid my tiny ear canal of them all.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Will my bones find yours after I die?”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“Go to your bed and, in your sleep, begin to memorize your dream.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“Gaza is a city where tourists gather to take photos next to destroyed buildings or graveyards. A country that exists only in my mind. Its flag has no room to fly freely, but there is space on the coffins of my countrymen.

(Page 9).”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

“We get lost in the past, present, and future.”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise: Poems

“My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986. The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.

(Page 12).”
― Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza