(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
"If I Must Die," A Poem by Refaat Alareer [1]
[]
Date: 2025-05
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been slain in just over two months. One of them is writer and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an airstrike by the Israeli military December 6, along with his brother, his brother’s son, his sister and her three children.
Refaat shared countless narratives about the horrors of the Israeli occupation and system of apartheid, and he mentored so many Palestinian writers, including Yousef Aljamal, whose essay about Gaza appears in our forthcoming issue. Yousef describes his friend as “the giant of the Palestinian narrative coming out of Gaza.”
Refaat’s poem “If I Must Die” has been shared widely since he was killed. On social media, an impromptu effort translated it into dozens of languages: Spanish, Italian, Tamil, Urdu, Tagalog, Greek, Japanese, Yiddish and more. Here, we offer it in English and Arabic.
—Ari Bloomekatz
“ IF I MUST DIE”
BY REFAAT ALAREER
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
فال بد أن تعيش أنت
رفعت العرعير
إذا كان لا بد أن أموت
فال بد أن تعيش أنت
لتروي حكايتي
لتبيع أشيائي
وتشتري قطعة قماش
وخيوطا
(فلتكن بيضاء وبذيل طويل)
كي يبصر طفل في مكان ما من ّغّزة
وهو يح ّّدق في السماء
منتظرًاً أباه الذي رحل فجأة
دون أن يودع أحدًاً
وال حتى لحمه
أو ذاته
يبصر الطائرة الورقّية
طائرتي الورقية التي صنعَتها أنت
تحّلق في الأعالي
ويظ ّّن للحظة أن هناك مالكًاً
يعيد الحب
إذا كان لا بد أن أموت
فليأ ِِت موتي باألمل
فليصبح حكاية
ترجمة سنان أنطون
Translation by Sinan Antoon
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/refaat-alareer-israeli-occupation-palestine
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
