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Grit


Greta, ripped from the blue,

the flotilla's fragile faith

shattered.

They scratched whore

on her luggage, a brand of venom

from the old, cold book of power,

a smear older than the mud it's flung from.

 

But the women,

they hold it, a seismic knowing.

I see them.

Those from the emerald deep,

their grandmothers’ ghosts

in the bone-rich earth,

a hunger echoing,

a shadow on the throat

that lingers for generations.

 

Those from the grit-grey shores,

where steel met bone,

and voices rose in chorus,

a defiance forged in hard light.

Those with eyes holding distant fires,

the whispers of shattered truths,

a quiet, unyielding stance,

a refusal to be unmade.

They lead, these women,

a fierce, unyielding weave.

 

Like

The spider, witness her:

her intricate, silver-spun universe,

a breath of wind, a human hand,

violently rent.

Does she weep? Does she wail?

She simply begins.

Turns her heavy belly,

spins new silk from deep within,

rebuilds her universe

against the indifferent, destructive air.

 

Gaza,

a thousand webs torn,

a thousand lives scattered

like dust motes in a broken sunbeam.

But the women there,

they are the spiders.

Spinning hope from rubble,

a fierce, quiet hum of reconstruction.

 

They break it,

We build.

They burn it,

We breathe.

The rhythm of resistance,

a heartbeat,

a persistent,

unbroken,

unbowed,

Grit.

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