{"id":15791,"date":"2023-12-13T12:14:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T12:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=15791"},"modified":"2023-12-13T12:14:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T12:14:17","slug":"a-poem-for-refaat-alareer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2023\/12\/13\/a-poem-for-refaat-alareer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for Refaat Alareer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A Poem for Refaat Alareer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the poem your butchers<br \/>\nfear to breathe, the murdered nurseries<\/p>\n<p>are clean, the brimming<br \/>\ntable-top restored \u2013 your every room<\/p>\n<p>aflush with idleness again,<br \/>\na bowl of flying spices<\/p>\n<p>near to hand, the oven-bread<br \/>\nuplifted through the haze: a feast<\/p>\n<p>the windy air will sing<br \/>\nfrom the open-hearted balcony<\/p>\n<p>to the salted promenade below,<br \/>\nwhere a boy<\/p>\n<p>is counting ripples out to sea,<br \/>\nand the market-men<\/p>\n<p>are bundling their wares,<br \/>\nthe coming dark<\/p>\n<p>a gentleness<br \/>\nand rustling of wings:<\/p>\n<p>no raining heat<br \/>\nor carnage to allay,<\/p>\n<p>the waterways unpoisoned<br \/>\nby cruelty or death.<\/p>\n<p>You see \u2013 the dream<br \/>\nyour fingers fashioned like a sail<\/p>\n<p>is soaring in the breeze;<br \/>\nyour pen<\/p>\n<p>outlives the bullets<br \/>\nof the eviscerator&#8217;s gun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>The Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer (1979-2023) was killed along with his family in Gaza on December 6th. His final broadcasted poem, &#8220;<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/itranslate123\/status\/1719701312990830934\/photo\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">If I must die<\/a><\/span>&#8221; 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.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Poem for Refaat Alareer In the poem your butchers fear to breathe, the murdered nurseries are clean, the brimming table-top restored \u2013 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":15792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[256,379,1393,1449,1686,1687,1688,3398,7310,7320,7341,7690,7691,7692,7693,7694,9542],"class_list":["post-15791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-a-poem-for-refaat-alareer","tag-alareer","tag-cassandra-voices-gaza","tag-cassandra-voices-poetry","tag-ciaran-o-rourke","tag-ciaran-orouke-poet","tag-ciaran-orourke-cassandra-voices","tag-for","tag-poem-in-memory-of-refaat-alareer","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-refaat","tag-refaat-alareer","tag-refaat-alareer-cassandra-voices","tag-refaat-alareer-if-i-must-die","tag-refaat-alareer-in-memory-of","tag-tribute-to-refaat-alareer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}