“Life is a Moon” and Other Poems, Sondos A. Al-Saqqa.

Ken Tanaka, 2024.

Sondos Al-Saqqa is a Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza. A survivor of Israel’s war and genocide, she studied English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza with Dr. Refaat Al-Areer. She has two brothers. She enjoys cooking, reading, and chatting with friends. Aerie Tales (2024) illustrated by Ken Tanaka is her first book.

To help support her and her family please donate to her GoFundMe.

Life is a Moon

If the sky sneezed at night,

the orphaned moon would be hurled into the sea.

The cold stars would be thrown at houses.

Clouds would clutch their hands to stay in place,

while the city would sleep— keep sleeping.

If I woke up one day and looked at the sky,

empty now of moon and stars,

I would drink the cup of death.

Life is nothing, but a moon after all.

*

Victim

I saw a bird with a bleeding heart;

I gave him my heart.

Then I bled and bled.

*

Sondos is hiding

I am hiding as an ant

piercing the grains of sand,

lost between the chant,

of life and those sands.

The sand is not only grains;

It is a space, an idea,

a mirror, and a flower.

The sand is not a shape.

The sand is everywhere;

It is inside us.

I am hiding in those sands,

and not only inside myself.