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Rest in My Shade: A Poem about Roots
Rest in My Shade is a poetic story about displacement, identity and loss recited by an ancient olive tree. Rest in My Shade features art created in various media by Palestinian artists living around the world including Suleiman Mansour, Nabil Anani, Ismail Shammout, Tamam Al-Akhal, Steve Sabella, Michael Hallak, and more.
Millions of people are being uprooted, separated from their families, and risk losing their culture as a result of war, poverty, repression, and climate injustice. Rest in My Shade is a tool for building understanding, compassion and dialogue. Together, we can build a world in which we can all live without fear, move freely, value and share the cultures and traditions that make us who we are, and feel dignity and acceptance everywhere.
For more information, see www.restinmyshade.com.
Millions of people are being uprooted, separated from their families, and risk losing their culture as a result of war, poverty, repression, and climate injustice. Rest in My Shade is a tool for building understanding, compassion and dialogue. Together, we can build a world in which we can all live without fear, move freely, value and share the cultures and traditions that make us who we are, and feel dignity and acceptance everywhere.
For more information, see www.restinmyshade.com.
- GenresPoetry
48 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2018
1 person is currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Nora Lester Murad
4 books23 followersNora Lester Murad moved to Jerusalem in 2004 with her Palestinian husband and three Palestinian-American daughters. She co-founded Palestine's first community foundation, Dalia Association, and Aid Watch Palestine, a community-driven aid accountability initiative. Nora has published in The Guardian, Aljazeera, Huffington Post, Open Democracy, and more. She speaks at international events around the world.
Rest in My Shade, co-authored with Danna Masad, will be released by Interlink in November 2018. An anthology of reflections by foreigners who have been transformed by Palestine is currently being shopped to agents. Nora is also finalizing two novels -- one is women's literary fiction and the other is aimed at upper middle grade.
Nora blogs at https://www.noralestermurad.com.
Rest in My Shade, co-authored with Danna Masad, will be released by Interlink in November 2018. An anthology of reflections by foreigners who have been transformed by Palestine is currently being shopped to agents. Nora is also finalizing two novels -- one is women's literary fiction and the other is aimed at upper middle grade.
Nora blogs at https://www.noralestermurad.com.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 14, 2024
5 stars After teaching my youngest about Palestine and the history and symbolism of olive trees, we read this together. It is meaningful, beautiful, and moving.
November 30, 2018
This book actually made me cry, and then made me hopeful for the future, all in forty pages. It's powerful, subtle, and gorgeous to look at. I loved it and I'm making all my family members read it. A great way to start conversations about displacement and the refugee crisis with both kids and adults.
February 2, 2019
The tree said: Here I am rooted in Palestinian soil, nourished by the waters from the rivers of Palestine that came from near and far, nurtured by people who love me; come sit in my shade and let’s become one.
And then the tree told of a life interrupted and of the sad story of uprooting and of the death that came with displacement and transplant. Trees die standing, you know.
“Rest in My Shade” tempestuous colorful cover and the playful hidden colors of a flag lured, and I accepted the invitation to rest in her shade.
That’s when I met the endpapers, strikingly sad with their black olives; sad in their tendency to be as gray as could be to match the less bright colorful reality that we forget or want to forget it exists. The endpapers reminded me of the Black on White death announcements that were posted all over my neighbourhood, later colorful with pictures. Colors did not then, as it doesn’t now, lighten the life we lived. This time it engulfed my whole world and being. How is such beauty able to carry that much sadness?
The poem and art are in harmony, they swung me between beauty and ugliness, sustenance and loss, nourishment and drought; between the love and connection of people to their land and trees and the imposed culture of death and utter violence, all that remains is what’s allowed not what’s hoped for. Survival is the aspiration.
The art is a gift that will be cherished for decades to come. A bouquet of life itself, with its colors, shapes, images, symbols: of birth and death, of pain and comfort. In these paintings, I saw the human elevated and found a legitimate place in the real world, the true world of nature itself. I was able to hear the sounds of nature in each and every piece of art. A circle has been completed, like the operatic voice that reaches its heights to be transformed into music, and the music that I am able to hear her talk. A kinship at its best.
I won’t say the book is illustrated, but rather that the beautiful art is punctuated with innocent words that tried but failed to find a sense or a logic to it all. The poem is of survival and hope, it could be seen as a beautiful and a tender way to present a story of depression and heartbreak. What happened to the tree and her people is beyond comprehension. So we the readers are left with a license to talk, dialogue, listen, honour, so that we might find a way to understand and to elevate injustice.
It seems also, that “Rest in My Shade” lacks the rooting and guidance for such the reader who lacks the historical and current background, the reader is almost left out dry.. An introduction that serves as a guiding light to the art and to the cause is missing.
The book jacket “introduction” seems to miss the content, it calls for “building understanding, compassion, and dialogue …. a truly just world--one in which we all live where we want, move freely and without fear, value and share the traditions that make us who we are, feel dignity and acceptance wherever we are.” A surreal call that equates the oppressor with the oppressed into a dialogue between an occupier who already moved to live wherever s/he pleased stealing the tradition and robbing the indigenous from her/his dignity, let alone the destruction of the land, landscape and trees.
The tree told her happy then the bittersweet story in a poem that honoured and understood the tree. The poem became one with it. That’s why the poem stepped back to give the exquisite art the place it deserved, it respectfully allowed it all the attention and tried not to take away from it. The poem also stepped back to have the readers finish the story as their conscience allowed. It held a mirror to the faces of the readers so they see their inner pure self.
A great opportunity has been missed in this regard. I wish that “Rest in My Shade” included some of the plentiful Palestinian poetry that lives the same beauty and destruction as the tree does.
The tree begged the readers understanding and commitment to justice. Will it succeed in changing the way people think about her people and land?
Or will the uprooted transplanted tree’s scream be met with the same eternal global silence her long suffering people have experienced for a century now?
In a world of immigrants and refugees, hers continue to be the longest lasting, most of her people are in their seventy year on of being uprooted & displaced. And like her, they remain unseen. No guiding light but the death that surrounds them. Their happiness & celebrations since take place under an umbrella of grief and loss. Will her hope to be a symbol of life and togetherness rather than destruction and uprooting be honoured?
In the midst of her trauma, I hope the tree finds comfort when she remembers what she witnessed through her own ancient history. I hope she recalls how her land honoured those who came in peace and who respected the diversity of the land and its people, and how sooner or later the violent, overpowering, controlling, selfish, greedy were expelled or self-destructed.
Bio of Ghada Kanafani:
Ghada Kanafani, born in 1948 in Beirut, Lebanon. Her parents were born in Haifa and 'Akka, Palestine. She holds an MA in philosophy. She immigrated to the United States in 1985. She is a mother and grandmother. Ghada’s book of poetry, "A Life in Pencil," was published in 2005 and again in 2015. She has won multiple awards for her work and writing in the fields of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusiveness and justice for all.
And then the tree told of a life interrupted and of the sad story of uprooting and of the death that came with displacement and transplant. Trees die standing, you know.
“Rest in My Shade” tempestuous colorful cover and the playful hidden colors of a flag lured, and I accepted the invitation to rest in her shade.
That’s when I met the endpapers, strikingly sad with their black olives; sad in their tendency to be as gray as could be to match the less bright colorful reality that we forget or want to forget it exists. The endpapers reminded me of the Black on White death announcements that were posted all over my neighbourhood, later colorful with pictures. Colors did not then, as it doesn’t now, lighten the life we lived. This time it engulfed my whole world and being. How is such beauty able to carry that much sadness?
The poem and art are in harmony, they swung me between beauty and ugliness, sustenance and loss, nourishment and drought; between the love and connection of people to their land and trees and the imposed culture of death and utter violence, all that remains is what’s allowed not what’s hoped for. Survival is the aspiration.
The art is a gift that will be cherished for decades to come. A bouquet of life itself, with its colors, shapes, images, symbols: of birth and death, of pain and comfort. In these paintings, I saw the human elevated and found a legitimate place in the real world, the true world of nature itself. I was able to hear the sounds of nature in each and every piece of art. A circle has been completed, like the operatic voice that reaches its heights to be transformed into music, and the music that I am able to hear her talk. A kinship at its best.
I won’t say the book is illustrated, but rather that the beautiful art is punctuated with innocent words that tried but failed to find a sense or a logic to it all. The poem is of survival and hope, it could be seen as a beautiful and a tender way to present a story of depression and heartbreak. What happened to the tree and her people is beyond comprehension. So we the readers are left with a license to talk, dialogue, listen, honour, so that we might find a way to understand and to elevate injustice.
It seems also, that “Rest in My Shade” lacks the rooting and guidance for such the reader who lacks the historical and current background, the reader is almost left out dry.. An introduction that serves as a guiding light to the art and to the cause is missing.
The book jacket “introduction” seems to miss the content, it calls for “building understanding, compassion, and dialogue …. a truly just world--one in which we all live where we want, move freely and without fear, value and share the traditions that make us who we are, feel dignity and acceptance wherever we are.” A surreal call that equates the oppressor with the oppressed into a dialogue between an occupier who already moved to live wherever s/he pleased stealing the tradition and robbing the indigenous from her/his dignity, let alone the destruction of the land, landscape and trees.
The tree told her happy then the bittersweet story in a poem that honoured and understood the tree. The poem became one with it. That’s why the poem stepped back to give the exquisite art the place it deserved, it respectfully allowed it all the attention and tried not to take away from it. The poem also stepped back to have the readers finish the story as their conscience allowed. It held a mirror to the faces of the readers so they see their inner pure self.
A great opportunity has been missed in this regard. I wish that “Rest in My Shade” included some of the plentiful Palestinian poetry that lives the same beauty and destruction as the tree does.
The tree begged the readers understanding and commitment to justice. Will it succeed in changing the way people think about her people and land?
Or will the uprooted transplanted tree’s scream be met with the same eternal global silence her long suffering people have experienced for a century now?
In a world of immigrants and refugees, hers continue to be the longest lasting, most of her people are in their seventy year on of being uprooted & displaced. And like her, they remain unseen. No guiding light but the death that surrounds them. Their happiness & celebrations since take place under an umbrella of grief and loss. Will her hope to be a symbol of life and togetherness rather than destruction and uprooting be honoured?
In the midst of her trauma, I hope the tree finds comfort when she remembers what she witnessed through her own ancient history. I hope she recalls how her land honoured those who came in peace and who respected the diversity of the land and its people, and how sooner or later the violent, overpowering, controlling, selfish, greedy were expelled or self-destructed.
Bio of Ghada Kanafani:
Ghada Kanafani, born in 1948 in Beirut, Lebanon. Her parents were born in Haifa and 'Akka, Palestine. She holds an MA in philosophy. She immigrated to the United States in 1985. She is a mother and grandmother. Ghada’s book of poetry, "A Life in Pencil," was published in 2005 and again in 2015. She has won multiple awards for her work and writing in the fields of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusiveness and justice for all.
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September 20, 2021⚜ poetry review ⚜
A truly beautiful work of poetry and art.
A truly beautiful work of poetry and art.
June 22, 2019
The words with the illustrations are very powerful.
November 2, 2023
Beautiful poem that echoes the love and connection Palestinians have for their land and culture. The artwork by Palestinian artists alongside the words make it even more impactful.
February 18, 2019
Rest in my shade is a gentle and beautiful book that yet bears witness to the root-wrenching violence experienced by the Palestinian people.
Like the olive tree that this poem gives voice to, this small book is generous, fruitful.
One of the final lines, “May people rest in my shade and be home” is an almost universal longing. I am sure this book will serve its’ stated purpose to build compassion and to create dialogue.
My internal dialogue rips me from this sentiment.
I am not the olive tree in this story, displaced and re-placed.
The new again in this moment realization that I am apriori, always already a Settler ‘here’, where I sit in my comfortable Canadian home, knowing what my ancestors bulldozed, knowing who my ancestors displaced to claim home.
I am the consumer of olives, from all-over. A product of generations of pickling of cultures, continents of condiments.
All I can say is that I will treat olive oil as a sacrament, from now on.
Like the olive tree that this poem gives voice to, this small book is generous, fruitful.
One of the final lines, “May people rest in my shade and be home” is an almost universal longing. I am sure this book will serve its’ stated purpose to build compassion and to create dialogue.
My internal dialogue rips me from this sentiment.
I am not the olive tree in this story, displaced and re-placed.
The new again in this moment realization that I am apriori, always already a Settler ‘here’, where I sit in my comfortable Canadian home, knowing what my ancestors bulldozed, knowing who my ancestors displaced to claim home.
I am the consumer of olives, from all-over. A product of generations of pickling of cultures, continents of condiments.
All I can say is that I will treat olive oil as a sacrament, from now on.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews