Passages from The Children of Rafah
I
The sun on a conqueror's bayonet was
A naked corpse despised:
Bleeding silence
Over rancorous prayer beads amidst
Bold-congested faces
An occupier with legendary features
yelled:
“Aren’t you going to speak?
Fine: Upon you then a curfew will be imposed as of . . .”
Aladdin’s voice splintered:
the birth of the birds of prey,
'I threw the stones at the military
vehicle,
distributed the leaflets and gave the signal;
I painted the slogan
carrying a brush and a chair
from a neighborhood . . . to a house
. . . to a wall;
I also gathered the children
And we swore
By the exile of the refugees,
to resist
As long as a conqueror’s bayonet
shines in our street.”
Aladdin was no more than ten
II
The acacia trees are crushed
And the gates of Rafah
Are sealed with sorrow
Or with wax
Or a curfew
(The girl had to take bread and
bandages to a wounded man that
returned after midnight She had
to cross a street overwatched
by the eyes of the strangers
the wind and the mouths of guns. )
The acacia trees are crushed
and like a wound,
a door of a house in Rafah was opened.
She leaped.
Landing in the lap of a jasmine tree;
Once on the sidewalk of terror
A palm-tree was her shelter
cautiously...with every footstep
now jump...
A patrol,
Flashing lights,
A cough
“–Who are you,
Stop!"
Five guns were fixed at her
Five guns.
In the morning,
The invader’s court was called
They brought her in:
Aminah
"The criminal"
A child of eight.
-- Samih al-Qasim
Poem first published translated into English in 1973.
Samih al-Qasim was a Palestinian poet and a member of the Israeli Communist Party. He died in 2014.
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