Disappearing Palestine

A family arrived and said they had papers
to prove that his house was theirs,
-No, no said the man, my people have always lived here
My father, grandfather -and look in the garden,
my great grandfather planted that.
-No, no said the family, look at the documents.
There was a stack of them
-Where do I start? said the man,
-No need to read the beginning they said,
Turn to the page marked 'Promised Land'.
-Are they legal? he said, who wrote them?
-God, they said, God wrote them, look,
here come His tanks.

Michael Rosen.