(In response to his poem, If I Must Die)
We all must die Refaat
I agree.
But none should rush
From one building to another
Only to be the rubble
Or the dust of flesh.
No mother should write
Goodbye to their children on air.
Death should stop for a while on the forehead
like the thick snow on the leaves
and let us grieve like melting drops of the snow
on earth.
Death should not be this brutal power show:
Sudden. Abrupt. Inhuman.
I will make a kite for you
The day we will set us free,
the day we will attain our freedom
And I won’t make the kite
From our Kafan
I will make the kite
By the piece of the sunshine
That will dapple the wheatfield of
Free Palestine.
A poet can’t be killed, Refaat.
In the blossom of every bud
In the eruption of every seed
In the germination of every hope
There is a poet who sings for hope
There will be You, Refaat.
I promise you, Refaat
I will write your story
In every alphabet
And scatter them on the sea.
Every bird while crossing over the sea
Will drench their wings in your story
And carry your story to faraway lands
And every voice from every mountain
will rise for you, for your dream
Of Free Palestine.
The snipers can’t kill the mountains
The rivers that come down from them
will be singing for you till-
Death gets freedom from this brutal suddenness
You become free
And the Sun rises free in free Palestine.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection, The Musings of the Dark was published in 2020. The book has about a hundred poems written in protest against the humanitarian crisis from the abrogation of article 370, the Delhi riots, and the Shaheen Bagh movement to the unbearable sufferings of the migrant labourers due to the unplanned COVID-induced lockdown. Her second poetry collection, Poems At Daybreak is going to be published soon by Red River Publications.
