“My Poems are for Palestine”

 

As poets past on mountain climbs 

Surveyed the world from views sublime 

And from their pens immortal lines 

On daffodils composed their rhymes 

 

One day again perhaps from mine 

Will flow out verses on the divine 

On love as tender as a vine 

And nights spent laughing over wine 

 

The night time stars, the scent of pine 

Perhaps one day in words combine

But now there’s no words I can find 

That ever could describe this crime 

 

So while those with power will us blind 

My poems are for Palestine

 

While the shrapnel rips through spines

Night air disturbed by missiles’ whine 

And bodies buried under shrines 

Where poets mused on paradise 

 

In rubble where the sun can’t shine 

What words are there that can describe

The broken body of a child 

Once you’ve seen that what can you write 

 

One day again we might delight

In love, and friendship, warmth and life

And poems like the birds take flight

Beyond the rubble and the wires 

 

For now our ink’s on protest signs 

Of horrors forced before our eyes 

And one day soon when freedom rise

From river to the ocean’s brine 

 

Then other poems we will scribe 

My poems are for Palestine 

 

For now we buy a cloth of white 

With long tails that we make a kite 

To bring back love; until that time 

My poems are for Palestine 

El Jones
(The poem was written on 7 November, 2024.)

Poet’s post-script:

“The final lines are, of course, a tribute to martyr Refaat Alareer’s immortal poem If I Must Die.”