Palestine’s Poppies
Yousef Alawi
Remembrance Day wears its name to the ground.
Blooming orchard of dismember, spring punctuates blood,
دماء شهداء أرضنا تصبغ
الأرض, وهي تشاهد
كيف التراب يمسح على رؤوسهم
how it trudges over their temples.
Adorns us into silence. Everyone—must stop.
أتذكر(ك)
The willow, which is named after its tendency to grieve, has faith
In your return to. The riverbed
Believes in your last name. Strewn over it
Are a grandfather’s last monochrome fish-net,
كل عقدة كرأس
each knot prostrating
مع كل تموج
Of these un-still waters
النهر
swiftly rippling into our thoughts, only steeping
Briefly. We dissolve (!)—into un-conscious ash, devoid
Of meaning and un-kinetic. Weeping hymnal
Of olive willow, its bark fibrous and aerated and whispering
To the dead sea. Silence up-bubbling to the surface, brine-
Lacerated and مُر, salt bound, مركز.
There isn’t much to say for the skin bejewelled to the shoreline,
Despite لونه, despite شرر الشظايا. Maybe—
I am listening—again or for once—انا مركز
I want to kiss my un-born children. They are soot
Already. My feet are burned through—my mother-
Land is suffocating. It is the body of my country
That is carried and laid into prayer, breathless. Profuse
With red saline-crystals. I wake to it caught
On fire
continuously—تحترق تحترق تحترق تحترق تحترق
There—a second coming of flight, a flock
Of birds or drones like severed heads,
يدسون بلاط سماءَنا
A curved vertebrae of noise pollution
-هوائنا يتلوث—يوم بعد يوم بعد
In this way
The country is quiet—
Has been for years.
Translation & Transliteration
Dima’ shuhada’ ardhina tasbugh
al-ard, wa hiya tushahid
Kayf at-turab yamsah ‘ala ru’usihim
Ata-dhak-kar(ak)
Kull ‘uqd-atin ka-ra’s
Ma’a kulli tamawwuj
An-nahr
Murr
Murakaz
Lown-oh
Sharar ash-shadhaya
Ana murakiz
Tahtariq, tahtariq, tahtariq, tahtariq, tahtariq
Yadussun balat sama’ana
Hawa’ana yatllawath—yawm ba’d yawm ba’d
The blood of our land’s martyrs dyes
The earth, as it watches
How mud wipes over their heads.
(I) remember (you)
Each knot like a head
With every undulation
The river
Bitter
Concentrated
Its colour
The spark of shrapnel
I am focused
It burns, burns, burns, burns, burns
trampling the tiles of our sky
Our air is polluted—day after day after-
دماء شهداء أرضنا تصبغ
الأرض, وهي تشاهد
كيف التراب يمسح على رؤوسهم
أتذكر(ك
كل عقدة كرأس
مع كل تموج
النهر
مُر
مركز
لونه
شرر الشظايا
انا مركز
تحترق تحترق تحترق تحترق تحترق
يدسون بلاط سماءَنا
هوائنا يتلوث—يوم بعد يوم بعد-
Yousef Alawi is a Yemeni writer, raised between Malaysia and Yemen and now resides in the UK. A Top 15 Foyle Young Poet of 2024, he has performed his writing at venues like The British Library, on BBC radio and headlined for the VERVE Poetry Festival.
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