Shriveled but still beautiful

My local grocery store offered these roses free, as they were past their expiration date, shriveled but still beautiful. I have been enjoying them, thinking about beauty tormented by adversity, reading Forest of Noise, by Mosab Abu Toha, Sue’s holiday gift to me. 

I have no words to say how moved I am by his poetry. Toha writes about Palestine extensively in prose as well as poetry. If you have half an hour, you can hear him speak eloquently about life and death in Gaza right now, hear him read more of his work, images deftly chosen, unforgettable. I think all my Blip friends would, if we could, free Palestine from violence and destruction. Until we can, we continue to inform our hearts more deeply, to commit ourselves to doing whatever we can.