For Refaat Alareer, Palestinian Poet

"There is a window open from my heart to yours." Rumi

See the splendor of pained poetic souls.

After he died, leapt out in the air above,
turned into a star in Gaza's bleak sky,
pouring words and tear.
How many heart cries. For what endless suffering,
soothed by his verse and rhyme.
The gallant Gazans follow it with reverence.
Although they weep for his loss, they dwell in his poems as a citadel,
a secured ark.
Did he predict today's indistinguishable relation
between occupation, displacement, and genocide?
All words coalesce, flow uncomfortably into the English lexicon.
Out of his grave, in Gaza City, the stone grove of his voice,
the vulgar odor of colonial infection withers by the spell of his love.
The tyranny of outrageous minds is set ablaze, when they hear him,
more joy than rage, soothing yet like a hurricane pounding the waves,
bridging the hearts.
He came to speak, to bridge the chasm between hearts, collapsed in shreds, secured in grace.
Poets are with art and nature crowned.
Reach Refaat a poet's crown. 
Mark him the chronicle of this scene of horror,
author of resistance, pride, and honor.
Refaat wrote, "sometimes a homeland becomes a tale," a heroic tale,
and their savant poets too. 
After he died, the sky of Gaza was littered with white kites speaking shinningly
to the deadly drones menacing above, like the buzzing of so many flies.
A parable of justice, a hope that never dies, under the golden dome of Mediterranean Sea saluting the eyes, eyes that see through the dark clouds, the brush of freighted air, the march of history toward a luminous point, into the clasp of a fresh new-born idea, nearer to binding faith than wild dismembering injustice,
Gaza uncaged, free from all deceits, where people mingle at seaside cafes with no fear of being bombed, reciting his poems, with bouquet of flowers on his grave with the note that reads, rest easy friend, Palestine will forever be free.

Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2025

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