I am grateful to editor Sharon SingingMoon Feltman for nominating my poem “The Wind Listens,” which is in the anthology Soul of Our Soul: Palestine in Poetry & Prose 2025. The proceeds of the anthology are being donated to aid the wounded and maimed children of Palestine who need prosthetics.
The poem expresses empathy for the children and connection to their suffering. We are all one, connected by our hearts. Borders are illusory. We breathe the same air; the wind carries our stories and sorrows. We share grief. While feeling motherly toward the children, I experience helplessness and fight complacency because the pain of witnessing the suffering of Palestinian children is too much to bear.
The Wind Listens
~ a sonnet to the children
My outline isn’t my continent. My skin, an illusion.
The miles between us, a mirage. I sit with the breeze.
your breath of loss. I grieve in your grief in the shadow
of Spring. I grieve out my story. I am you. Disabled.
Orphaned. The wind carries our sorrows. Makes us one.
Heartbreak holds us, Child. The wind delivers you to me
in the cradles of clouds. Our fates dissipate into stiffened fog.
I am ashamed, Child. A helpless mouse seeking shelter
in the rubble of my complacency. A hungry robin hopping
on sun-starved soil. You plant posies in the blackened earth.
Your kites release prayers into the winds that wind to me.
As I inhale your despair, the daffodils nod their heads, exhale
a new Spring to stream as a rising sun. A gauze on our shared sorrows.
The corporeal stones are deaf. The wind listens.
© Barbara Leonhard
To provide aid to wouded and maimed Palestinian children who need prosthetics, you can purchase the anthology in Kindle or Paperback format. The poems and prose pieces are very powerful.
Book Description
Soul of our Soul is not a work of fiction. It is an anthology of work written now, during the horrors of an on-going genocide against innocent civilians in Gaza and the West Bank in occupied Palestine. This anthology contains work written by those struggling amidst daily bombing, intentional starvation, lack of clean water; by those with family members in Gaza and the West Bank; and by those with love and compassion for the people of Palestine. Contributors include writers and poets from across the globe who care, who cannot remain silent, who search for any meaningful way to express their grief and hope, and who want to see an end to suffering and a FREE PALESTINE!
I wrote a post about the benefit held to raise money for this good cause. You might recall it and my poem from the anthology.
Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver 
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