I

I seek refuge for you
in my prayers
and supplications asking for guidance
praying too for the protection of every minaret
and every neighbourhood
from the missile

from the moment
it is an order
issued by a general
until it becomes an attack

I seek refuge for you and the children
praying that before it falls
its path will be changed
with your smile

II

I seek refuge for you and the children
asleep here
like chicks in the nest, asleep

They do not walk towards dreams at night
because death
walks towards the house

And mothers’ tears become doves
to follow them
into each coffin

III

I seek refuge for the children’s father who after a bombing
reinforces the building so it doesn’t tilt

saying to the moment of death
“Have mercy on me
– wait a little

for their sake I’ve loved my life –
grant them a death as beautiful
as they are”

IV

I seek refuge for you from injury
and death
in the depths of our siege
in the belly of the whale

Our streets pray to God at each
bombing
supplicating for the mosques and houses

and when bombing starts up
in the north
we start to pray with devotion
in the south

V

I seek refuge for you from injury
and suffering
I send the verses
of the Fatiha

to protect from white phosphorus
the taste of the oranges
and the hues of the clouds
from the smoke

I seek refuge for you
And surely when the dust settles
those who loved and died
will laugh together

Hiba Abu Nada who was born in 1991 and was killed on the 20th of October 2023 in Gaza at the age of 32 in the current ongoing bombardment. She had published several collections of poetry and had won a Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity prize for her novel Oxygen is Not For the Dead. Her poems express a powerful Islamic spirituality and sense of hope and light even in the direst and most horrific circumstances.