The Land Gave Birth
Palestine gave birth
her pavements smiled with groves of olives and roses
her children were shepherds, farmers, jewelers
she became pregnant with hope
It would be enough for me to die, here, on her soil,
Be buried deep in the earth of my country,
Only to sprout forth again as a bright bloom,
Waved gently by a child who calls this land home.
It would be enough for me to remain home,
Alive,
existing as a trace in her fabric …
So, they targeted her womb
And Death greeted every child she had.
Copyright © 2026 by Ahmad Ibsais. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 12, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“As a Palestinian watching the genocide of my people, I needed a form that could hold tenderness and devastation. This poem is a tribute for Palestinian mothers and children, for the wombs targeted and the lives erased. It moves from the land as a nurturing mother to the deliberate annihilation of that motherhood. Birth itself has become a target. The poem is [a] witness to that truth, a tribute to their martyrdom. I wrote it so their memory outlasts the machinery trying to erase them.”
–Ahmad Ibsais
Ahmad Ibsais
Ahmad Ibsais is a Palestinian American writer and poet. A law student at the University of Michigan, Ibsais lives in Ann Arbor on Anishinaabe land.