olives and grapes

i. palestine
afraid?
afraid to go
afraid to go to the own trees

to?
to harvest
to harvest their olives
to harvest their olives... their livlihood

avoiding?
avoiding bullets
avoiding bullets and beatings

from?
from colonizers
from colonizers who believe
from colonizers who believe in a new form
from colonizers who believe in a new form of manifest destiny

unsettling?
unsettling indiginous people
unsettling indiginous people from their homes
unsettling indiginous people from their homes and lands

ii. artsakh
devastated?
devastated and exiled
devastated and exiled from their homes
devastated and exiled from their homes and lands?

their lands?
their lands where they lived for centuries

their lands?
enver tried to pan turaned away

their lands?
that stalin gave away 

their lands?
that the world believes is theirs

their lands?
where they can longer pick grapes
from what were their vines...

november 2025
after hear this report on npr