The doors do not hear the story of her death. (The falcon cannot hear the falconer.)
Oh mother, a rattle, tears and darkness
Blood gushed out, and the stabbed body trembled.
“Oh mother!” Heard only by the executioner
Tomorrow the dawn will come and roses will wake up
Youth and enchanted hopes will ask for her
The meadows and the flowers will answer:
She left to wash the disgrace.
The brutal executioner returns
And meets people
“Disgrace!” He wipes his knife
“We’ve torn it apart.”
And returned virtuous with a white reputation.
Nazik al-Malaika, an Iraqi poet in exile, died last Wednesday in Cairo. She was 83.
In a country riven by sectarian strife, her life and work as a poet and a literary critic were poignant reminders of Iraq’s cultural renaissance in the mid-20th century. Baghdad was then considered the Paris of the Middle East, and poets and artists flocked here to work.
It is, of course, no longer thus. The meadow has become a killing field – and the brutal executioners are doing overtime.
Meanwhile, in The Land of the Free, where most of Iraq’s current troubles originated, another old son of the 20th century was buried with all honours. Quite fittingly, the mood was sombre when Captain America was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
The hero, who had fought, amongst others, Hitler and his Fourth Reich monsters, was killed by a sniper’s bullet.
In a world gone mad, where people will sacrifice their first-born child to lay their hands on an iPhone and mad vicars see the vengeance of the Lord in a British summer shower, it should not surprise anyone that Victoria Beckham, wife of David, used the opportunity to have her picture taken next to the Captain’s open grave, wrapping herself inside the American flag, and announcing the reunion of the Spice Girls.
Between the braying of the celebs, exhibiting their lack of taste and morals while they prance on the graves of decency and grace, and yet another star-studded (or star-shunned - take your pick) festival to honour a dead princess, the death of a poet almost passes unnoticed,
She left, no cheek turned pale, no lip trembled.
The doors did not hear the story of her death…
The news tumbled down the avenue its echo not finding a shelter
So it stayed forgotten in some hole, its depression the moon lamenting.
Still, with that beast another poet mentioned, still slouching towards Bethlehem, we have much more to mourn than one dead poet.
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