Published in Overland Issue · Uncategorized The Nasīb of Lujayn Hourani Hasib Hourani The first half, the motherland: Tarshīha, District of Akkā Shiḥa Jamaluddin flew*. (ṭar shiḥa.) The legendary hero flew to the battlefield fought the crusaders and had a city named after him. town territory land By 1948 she is deserted, looted, not allotted to us. Al sha‘b flew*. (ṭar al sha‘b.) The masses flew in flocks to safer land and she is made naked. One decade later, she is dressed in new vesture brought in from the east, west, and north. They build her from the ground up, from the rubble and branches up (already 600 metres above sea level, they go even higher.) Like a woman in marriage she keeps her old name and adopts the new one, too – hyphenating them like it means modernity. *the imperfect conjugation of Arabic teer, to fly, is tar. The second half, the fatherland: Ḥiṭṭīn, District of Ṣafad The father didn’t make it out alive. In the twelve-hundreds he homed the battle of the horns in the sixteen-hundreds the ottomans in 1948 the war and that finally did it. Think bountiful, and flourishing, and refreshing; think olive trees, and fruit trees; think figs in the summer and spring water flowing into wadis (think about how these aren’t my thoughts and haven’t been anyone’s for a while now.) – Evacuate the inhabitants – Occupy the town – Chase away the rāji‘ūn* – Extinguish the men – pack animals – reason to come back Found new towns with new names and like rock salt in the mortar wound call old mosques heritage sights. *literally translated as the returners. Read the rest of Overland 236 If you liked this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Hasib Hourani Hasib Hourani is a Palestinian writer, editor, and arts worker who lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. More by Hasib Hourani › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 18 April 202418 April 2024 · Education A Jellyfish government in NSW: public education’s privatisation-by-neglect Dan Hogan A private school that receives public money is not a private school: it is a fee-paying public school. The overfunding of private schools using public money is a symptom of a public service that has been rotted for a quarter of century by a political class with no vision beyond producing dubious, misleading statistics to deploy at the next election. 17 April 202417 April 2024 · Culture From the edge of the circle pit: growing up punk and girl in Indonesia Dina Indrasafitri Circa 1999, I sat on the floor in a poorly lit house on the outskirts of Jakarta, still in my grey-and-white high-school uniform. The members of the protest punk band Anti-Military were plotting their first album recording in the next room. Scattered around me were political pamphlets, zines and books touching on the subjects of anarchism, anti-work and anti-racism.