March 8, 2024

At the Cliff of Death: a Poem from Gaza

by Haya Abu Nasser

Haya Abu Nasser and I met under the auspices of We Are Not Numbers, an English-language literary training and mentorship program founded in Gaza in 2015. Haya has been internally displaced four times in Gaza since October 2023, and connects to the outside world via intermittent cell phone service, often silenced by Israeli missiles. 

I have been teaching creative writing off and on for over thirty-five years, and Haya is among the most talented poets I have known. She is writing beautiful and devastating poems while living in a tent and experiencing first-hand Gaza’s grievous losses caused by Israel’s genocidal violence. As I told Haya, her talent is a precious gem, and through her writing she is a champion for her people.

—Nancy Kricorian

Death is extending a hand of redemption,
with a forceful yank.
When I retract my hand,
he seizes my head and gazes into my eyes,
urging me to tread in his path.

—Haya Abu Nasser

At the Cliff of Death

What is our life but a melancholic play
on a stage of blood
with an audience of drowsy eyes?
In the background,
blues music chases the ears.
Footfalls sprint back and forth,
like a bow across violin strings.

Gloomy crowds resonate with wails:
where should we flee away
from the relentless drones?
People are escaping like shadows;
on their backs, the boulder of Sisyphus.
They are climbing the cliff of death.
Their fingers are outstretched,
reaching for the sprouting branches,
against the dark abyss.

Death is extending a hand of redemption,
with a forceful yank.
When I retract my hand,
he seizes my head and gazes into my eyes,
urging me to tread in his path.

At the cliff of death,
I see myself suspended by a noose,
swaying gracefully with the wind.
I am as free as a firefly glowing in a cave,
a smile on my azure face.
My hands are released,
like an ancient oak tree,
dancing a tango with the breeze.

My soul is an immigration ship,
where death waits by the sea,
craving more visitors.

On the other bank of the cliff,
Death stands alone.
He is dressed in a white suit,
arranging a bouquet with meticulous care,
to welcome his new bride.

Gaza, February 2024

Header photo taken by Haya Abu Nasser in Gaza, 2024.

Haya Abu Nasser is a human rights activist and writer whose family is originally from Deir-Sneid. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and humanitarian sciences and worked for several non-governmental organizations in Palestine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in AGNI, Scoundrel Time, Evergreen Review, The Normal School, The Rumpus, and Guernica. After being internally displaced in Gaza four times between October 2023 and February 2024, she managed to cross the Rafah border into Egypt in early March and will go to Malaysia to study for a graduate degree in International Relations.

Nancy Kricorian is the author of the novels Zabelle, Dreams of Bread and Fire, and All the Light There Was. She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Rutgers, Yale, and New York University, as well as at Birzeit University for the Palestine Writing Workshop. Her new novel about Armenians in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War will be published by Red Hen Press in 2025. 

Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.