Dear Reader, “Spring is our proof that radical, revolutionary change is possible, and very quickly.” This comes from my opening remarks at a “Poetry for Palestine” event, two nights before New Years’ Eve: “I invite you to look at Spring. Trees lay bare for what seems like forever, then buds sprout, and again it seems like forever, but you wake up one morning and you see flowers of every color, and the next week it’s green all over, and bird-songs fill the air. Yet it happens in the most...

Dear Reader, This second Christmas under genocide, Moses comes to mind—not the wrathful old man, but the helpless infant in a papyrus basket floating downriver. The child was destined to perish were it not for the compassion of one person, the daughter of the very Pharaoh who condemned a generation of infants to death. Like Moses, Jesus was a survivor of a mass-infanticide. Jesus was saved by the compassionate intervention of his adoptive father, Joseph. Their journey to Egypt was a mirror...

Dear Reader, Thank you for sticking with me during this difficult year. I appreciate all your interactions and notes of support. Reflecting on a poem I wrote last year from Palestine on October 7, it occurred to me that everyone killed in Gaza during the past year – estimates range from 43,000 to 200,000 or more – were alive at the moment I wrote that poem. This sad truth points to a starker fact: that the loss of life since Oct. 7 was entirely preventable. By the evening of October 7, the...