On A Starless Night by Mosab Abu Toha
On A Starless Night
Mosab Abu TohaOn a starless night,
I toss and turn.
The earth shakes, and
I fall out of bed.
I look out my window. The house
next door no longer
stands. It’s lying like an old carpet
on the floor of the earth,
trampled by missiles, fat slippers
flying off legless feet.
I never knew my neighbors still had that small TV,
that old painting still hung on their walls,
their cat had kittens.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha, published by City Lights Books, 2022. (Available direct from City Lights Books • Also on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity.
These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive.” (Source)
ABOUT MOSAB ABU TOHA
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and the author of Forest of Noise (Knopf, 2024), long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights Books, 2022). The founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library, Toha is a former visiting poet in Harvard University’s department of comparative literature. (Source)
Read more poems by Mosab Abu Toha • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Twitter • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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Meg
Your writing is why I hastily open your emails! Without your beautiful deep writing and insights it’s just a poem….
Your writing T, is what has healed me, and kept me afloat. Thank you
T.
Dearest Meg—thank you for being here, and for reading my words with such eagerness. I deeply appreciate you. Sometimes I am at a loss before a poem—am just full of feeling and questions yet bereft of language—and so I daren’t write marginalia, and let the work speak for itself. But I hear you.
T.
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