Mosab Abu Toha
Mosab Abu Toha is a young Palestinian poet from Gaza. A graduate in English Literature, he enjoys writing stories and poems of his own. Mosab taught English at UNRWA schools in Gaza from 2017 until 2019. Mosab is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library. As many of Gaza’s libraries were destroyed, he began a campaign in 2014 to collect donations of English-language books in what would become Gaza’s first public library for English books. Noam Chomsky, who has donated several autographed books to the library, wrote on Mosab’s behalf describing the library as “a unique resource, and what is more a refuge and a rare flicker of light and hope for the young people of Gaza.” Source
We Love What We Have
We love what we have, no matter how little,
because if we don’t, everything will be gone. If we don’t,
we will no longer exist, since there will be nothing here for us.
What’s here is something that we are still
building. It’s something we cannot yet see,
because we are part
of it.
Someday soon, this building will stand on its own, while we,
we will be the trees that protect it from the fierce
wind, the trees that will give shade
to children sleeping inside or playing on swings.
Published:
2022
Length:
Shorty
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2025
Themes:
Agency
Faith & Hope
Love & Relationships
Nature
Literary Devices:
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Anadiplosis
A device in which the last word or phrase of one clause, sentence, or line is repeated at the beginning of the next.
Conditional Statement
statements of an “if-then” or “unless-then” situation (although “then” is not used), or a probability
Enjambment
a line break interrupting the middle of a phrase which continues on to the next line
Metaphor
a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic