A Poem for Refaat Alareer
In the poem your butchers
fear to breathe, the murdered nurseries
are clean, the brimming
table-top restored – your every room
aflush with idleness again,
a bowl of flying spices
near to hand, the oven-bread
uplifted through the haze: a feast
the windy air will sing
from the open-hearted balcony
to the salted promenade below,
where a boy
is counting ripples out to sea,
and the market-men
are bundling their wares,
the coming dark
a gentleness
and rustling of wings:
no raining heat
or carnage to allay,
the waterways unpoisoned
by cruelty or death.
You see – the dream
your fingers fashioned like a sail
is soaring in the breeze;
your pen
outlives the bullets
of the eviscerator’s gun.
The Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer (1979-2023) was killed along with his family in Gaza on December 6th. His final broadcasted poem, “If I must die” makes reference to his statement in an interview that if soldiers arrived on his doorstep he would fling his pen, his only weapon, in their faces.