In the same piece, I discovered a powerful poem by Lebanon’s most celebrated poet, Khalil Gibran, written for nearly half million Lebanese (mostly from Beirut) who perished in the 1916 famine:
“My people died of hunger, and he who
Did not perish from starvation was
Butchered with the sword;
They perished from hunger
In a land rich with milk and honey.
They died because the vipers and
Sons of vipers spat out poison into
The space where the Holy Cedars and
The roses and the jasmine breathe
Their fragrance.”
Kahlil Gibran, the mystic poet
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