Connecting Voices - Connect your voices and let them resonate throughout the world

These poems are a collection of voices gathered through social media and are a message from Japan to the people of Palestine.  PDF here

Connecting Voice Project No.1

You and I, and Us

For too long, I closed my eyes and sealed my lips.
That silence has brought us to this tragedy-
to massacres by Zionists, each one worse than the last.

Blood has been spilled, lives taken.
At last, I have awakened.
It is shameful, but deep regret has given me unshakable determination:
"I will never look away again. I will keep thinking of you, standing with you, in solidarity."

So please, do not give up on this world.
"I'm with you. You are not alone."
"Until the day your freedom in Palestine arrives, we will laugh, cry, and shout together."
"We live in the same world. We stand on the same ground."
I am here. "The sky connects us."

The land is scorched, spirits broken.
At last, I have found my voice.
It is pitiful that it took me so long, but fierce anger has turned into steadfast conviction.
I vow: "I will never be silent. Your thoughts will become my voice. We will live on together."

So please, keep faith in this world.
"I'm with you. You are not alone."
"I want to carry your words to as many people as I can, across the world ? your voices rising even in the roar of bombs."
"We live in the same world. We stand on the same ground."
"I am grateful to have come to know you."

So please, do not give up on us-on you and me.
"I'm with you. You are not alone."
I pray: "May the calm sky return soon."

I hope: "For a place where we can be together without fear."
I believe: "In liberation and freedom. In humanity itself."
Today I pray, tomorrow I will speak again:
"I will keep letting my voice resound, until it reaches the hearts of people everywhere."

"We live in the same world. We stand on the same ground."
You and I are here.
And our voices, our story-no bomb will ever destroy them.

2024.7.18
Voice Connecting Project

Connecting Voice Project No.2

Does a Flower Bloom There, Too?

"I look up at the Prussian blue sky as a blind angel flies through the Gaza night sky, tears of blood streaming from his eyes."

No matter how much I wish it,
I cannot take on their pain in their place.
But every time we close our mouths,
they continue to bear the suffering.

"If it were truly genocide, the world would never stay silent."
"They should just surrender completely?then many lives would be saved, and the world would watch over them afterward."
I once believed that, too.
But the ‘world’ we thought we were living in,
and the real world, are not the same.
At the very least, understand that much."

At the very least.
At the very least.
At the very least.
So I fold my hands and pray, day after day.

"Arbitrary borders drawn.
Voices trapped within the fence of injustice.
And yet, across the world,
people listen. And
you and I raise our voices.
Voices.
Voices.
Voices.
Voices connect, together
they cross the borders,
and the world begins to change."

The world we live in-
the real world-
the world is one, and our wish is peace.
There is no doubt in that.
And yet-

Calmly.
Calmly.
Calmly.
Endless time passes.
"I look up at the Prussian blue sky as a blind angel flies through the Gaza night sky, tears of blood streaming from his eyes."
To say that "time will heal" is nothing more than a cruel joke by psychologists.

"I think of you every day."

"There is a daughter I have never met,
a daughter I have only embraced through words.
She is in Gaza."

A place I have never been-
and yet it feels closer than the place I stand now.

"I was afraid. Afraid of what it would mean
if I had lived my life never knowing this reality, their lives…"

"I pray for you every day."

We will meet. Alive, we will meet!
The time for spilling blood, tears, and lives is over!
This is our time, our generation’s problem!
There is no time to waste!
Open your eyes, rise up-

"May you be given time to face your truest feelings."

Raise your voice.

"May you be given time to believe in your true tomorrow."
And yet?

Calmly.
Calmly.
Calmly.
Time passes mercilessly.
Voices begin to falter, to wither-
hope and despair intertwined.
Calmly.
Calmly.
Calmly.

"It is a contradiction. My heart holds contradictory feelings.
One cannot choose the feelings that are born. They cannot be thrown away.
We always live within them-both they and I.
And that itself is proof of connection.
It is sorrow and it is joy."

"Does a flower bloom there, too?"

This voice is not only for them.
It is for all people facing injustice,
for all people fighting against oppression,
and for those who stand with them.

"Even in the midst of shattered lives,
stolen freedoms,
and such tragedies-br> do not forget:
you are noble, you are beautiful."

"There is hope. It is there.
As long as you live, as long as I live."

"So live.
Simply live.
That alone is enough.
That alone makes you beautiful."

2024.9.29
Voice Connecting Project

Connecting Voice Project No.3

Toward That Day

"I walk the 85 kilometers of the path of prayer.
Though I grieve that I cannot keep praying without end,
I realize that with each step, with each word,
I can pray tens of thousands of times.
I spoke aloud to keep walking.
A path is not made simply by clearing it;
it is made when many feet walk upon it.
A path may collapse when storms come,
but when many pass through, it is renewed.
Perhaps it is obvious,
but the path of prayer must be the same."

"Hands we kept holding.
Nights we kept praying.
Days when tears were lost-
and still, we kept raising our voices."
"Even words that seem already spoken,
I want to send them to those who have not yet heard."
"Songs for the children.
Kisses for the parents.
Smiles for our friends.
Light for you."
"May everyone live with laughter, happiness, and peace."

Guided by the time we have carried,
and the scent of the land, I walk on.

I walk the 77 years of resistance.
I can only imagine how much pain endless struggle brings,
and even that does not touch your truth.
Still, I reached out my hand.
I am terribly late, but I have decided:
I too will walk the road you keep walking.

"The distance felt immeasurable.
To reclaim a life-
what kind of journey is that-"
"Nothing has ended.
Nothing has stopped.
It has always continued."
"I felt the hands I held slowly slipping away,
and in fear, I clutched them tighter.
But maybe, letting go
is what is truly right.
For my wish is that you live your life, as yours."

Guided by the time we have carried,
and by unbroken hearts, I walk on.

"They want us to believe-
that no matter what, our friends cannot be saved.
That Palestine’s suffering is the world’s fixed course.
That it is immovable, unchangeable.
That’s what they want us to believe.
So imagine. Envision. Dream.
Stronger than they can impose.
When Palestine is free-what do you want to do-
I want to watch friends from Gaza and friends from Japan
share coffee together.
I want to listen until morning
to the stories of the things we loved
before we became fighters for Palestine.
Imagine. Envision. Dream.
Stronger than they can dictate.
When that day comes-what do you want to do-"

"I want to gaze at the blue sky."
The sky of Gaza you told me of-
a sky I somehow felt I had always known-
I will lift my eyes to it,
within the time I too have carried.

"This endless world,
this ground full of stones and breaks-
even if I run and vanish,
I feel we will meet again.
So I will make it easier for you to let go of my hand,
so you can run.
I will help create a world
where you can run freely."

I walk with 5.5 million, on the path of freedom.
A path of resistance against their imposed verdicts.
A path unbroken by bombing or siege.
A path that shines prouder and brighter
than anything built by money and power.

You walk. I walk.
And we will meet beyond it.
When that day comes-

"Let us dance the dance of resistance, together through the night.
Let us dance the dance of resistance, together until morning."
Beneath the sky of Palestine,
upon the soil of Palestine-
let us dance, my friends!

2025.3.2
Voice Connecting Project