Kevin Coval

The night of Nov. 9... was the fulfillment of a dream. German Chancellor Angela Merkel

today concrete stretches into sky,
twenty-six feet high. drab slabs
cut into four hundred and thirty-six
miles of country. dominos to block
the sun. an accordion of cement,
strung like a clothes line, wheezing
a deep, lone note.

today in al-Ma’sara children
grab barbwire with bare hands. march
toward a wall soldiers protect with guns.
soldiers push the children back,
bloody their hands on barbwire.

today armed men push children in the holy land.

today in Berlin, people celebrate.
politicians give speeches. the east and west
battle to tell the story in the light
that most suits them. regardless
how it is spun, people demanded
the wall fall.

twenty years later, more walls.
nations erect walls to keep people out.
walls are static, ugly and stupid.
people are resilient, fluid and numerous.
people break walls.

The Court in The Hague said the wall
is illegal. the wall is Israel’s myopia.
america’s revisionism. the wall bulldozes
hundreds of Palestinian homes
in a shrinking, stolen land.

today in Qalandiya, protestors
tore one slat of wall down,
twenty years to the day the wall
in Berlin fell.

today Palestinians wear neon yellow
shirts, black block letters across their chest
read, JERUSALEM, WE ARE COMING.
coming thru jidar al fasal al unsari!
coming thru the wall of apartheid!
coming to the city of peace!
as long as the wall exists
the city will have no name!
sons and daughters of the city
coming to reclaim the name!

walls fall like dominos.
the earth moves and people
demand the freedom to move
as the earth does; the freedom
to see cousins, to buy olives,
to visit hospitals. walls fall
or get ripped down or knocked
over. people walk thru walls
like superheroes.

today the state of Israel builds a wall.
today a piece of the wall was toppled down.
today the people of Palestine and today the people
everywhere dream of peace, dream no walls,
dream of the day the wall will
come down, piece by piece.