Saudade: A Poem of Grief and Resilience, Taqwa Al Wawi
A deeply affecting and powerful poem on grief and resilience, written by the talented Taqwa Al Wawi, a young poet from the Gaza Poets Society.
Saudade: A Poem of Grief and Resilience
Oh, my mind
let’s sit down tonight and speak in silence,
for the noise inside is louder than bombs,
and the smoke of worry
has blurred my view of the stars.
I am Drained—
not of walking,
but of carrying the weight
of questions with no answers.
I was like a burning tree
in the middle of a war zone—
every leaf a memory,
every root a wound.
My soul was dug up
like ruins after a raid,
shattered in fragments
too fragile to name.
I wanted to scream,
but my voice
was buried under
the rubble of grief.
Instead of shelter,
I found a battlefield
in my own mind—
where I fought myself
each sleepless night.
I made my escape
from the bullets of thought,
but they followed me
like shadows
in broad daylight.
I saw the sky crack open
not with rain—
but with silence
too loud to bear.
We are a generation
gasping for air
in a room full of smoke,
begging for peace
as a newborn begs for breath.
We carry Saudade
in every heartbeat—
a longing for what we lost
and for what we never had.
But even sleep
is no longer a refuge,
and dreams have turned
into documentaries
of what we’ve lost.
Still—
with each breath,
I carry hope—
a flicker trembling in the storm,
but stubborn,
unyielding,
and alive.
Saudade* is a Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional feeling--like when you miss someone or something that's gone or far away. It's not just missing it's more like a mix of love, nostalgia, and sadness, especially when you know that what you miss might never come back.
In Arabic, we have words like *حنين* (nostalgia) and *شوق* (longing), *لوعة* (heartache) or *وجع الفقد* (the feeling of loss) but saudade goes beyond that. It's a mix of love, pain, and yearning, with an acceptance that what's lost may never return.