Zahraa Farhat - Pilgrimage

The Dewdrop couldn’t be more honored to begin 2026 by sharing Zahraa Farhat’s moving and hopeful poem “Pilgrimage”. Sacred, transformative, and luminous with optimism, “Pilgrimage” sets off on a journey of fellowship and prayer ascendant, pondering an end to violence and oppression. “[“Pilgrimage”] is about finding solace in prayer and dreaming of an end to Israel’s oppression and apartheid against Palestinians and its genocide in Gaza,” Zahraa informed The Dewdrop.

Pilgrimage

We are a weight of feathers,
breaking walls, flying high
reaching the glistening dome,
the blue, white, green, gold
glazed tile mosaics housing the holy rock.
We wash our faces with fountain water
pouring like soft roses
on our skin. Sacred. Safe—
How can it be? I wonder
if heaven split open into red coral,
banished the apartheid, healed
the oppressed, if we finally
flap free. I wake up,

face the qibla and pray.

Zahraa Farhat
Zahraa Farhat is a Lebanese American writer and former journalist for The Arab American News. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in creative writing from Wayne State University, and an MFA in poetry from Lindenwood. As a daughter of immigrants and a Muslim in America, her writing is preoccupied with themes of family, war, country, and identity.