By Lillian Rosengarten

Here in Bali trees are ‘living beings’ for nature, religion and man is one.
Frogs and dragonflies live in harmony with all creatures and man.
A reddish sun rises on the mountain slope ans brings life to all elements of nature.
Light in Bali, like no other in the world reveals the forces of nature.
The magic of Bali is the night time encounter of the divine in the form of
 moon, mountain, sea and trees with the worshipping faithful.
It is the magic of Bali at it’s highest.

As light turns from red to orange to deepest blue, as mountain fades into darkness,
I think of my Palestine imprisoned in the paranoid face of Israel starved of life and dragon flies.
Olive groves and orchards once bloomed on your land, fishermen now dead.
Sunlight hides behind Israeli shells
No creature to soothe your piercing screams your tortured souls.
There is no oneness here, the divine imprisoned by beasts of the night.
Creatures have turned into vultures, they eat the flesh of their brothers.

Why this spiritual hell, this soulless occupation and punishment?
My Palestine, your suffering is my suffering and I am you.
We are the homeless wanderers defiled by our oppressors.
Let me hold you in my golden twilight, sweep you into my tree.
Under the dying sun we become one with the moon.
Lie with me in my stillness, shine light into our darkness
To awaken in the purest light of Palestine.

– Lillian Rosengarten, a refugee from Nazi Germany is a Buddhist practitioner, poet, writer and a pacifist. She contributed this poem to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact her at: truthpoem@gmail.com.