Detroit, Hamilton, Paris, does not feel like home to me

For am I to be like Odysseus traveling the foreign seas

Always in my heart to return to Ithaca to Palestine

Always to return to my homeland, not yours but always mine

The Jerusalem orchards elsewhere are not to be compared

For they are not planted by my ancestors they can not be shared

My memory of my homeland cannot be taken away

You can write your own books but cant stop me from what I say

I do not have an official document to say I can return

I have it in my heart and there it will eternally burn

The key to our homes, when we were forced to flee

Will always be part of us wherever we may be

My life will never be complete till I touch the Palestinian soil

Without it my yearnings and passion, for return will continue to boil

I never forget my identity, for it alone defines me

Palestine and not my place in exhile ,is shaped by each stone and tree

For I am like the cold, hungry sailor sailing in a vast unknown distance

But my dreams and memories of return is always in persistence

the world gave us no right of return, so we bleed in history

The refugee looks at his life experiences, frightened in wonder and mystery

The olive, the fig, Naomi states are not the same in any land

The authenticity is found in Palestine and we need to make a stand

But who said we enjoy exhile, when what we want is return

Who said we wanted to be pushed out return is what we yearn

I want to feel the beaches of Haifa and have hareesi in Jenine

I want to return and plant an orchard for that I am so keen

For Detroit, Hamilton, Paris does not feel like home to me