Aral Balkan
boosted
Or perhaps because painting is free - forgive me, I forgot-
It costs the painter his life, Or it costs that soldier a bullet or two
To silence this Palestinian clamor.
I imagine him in his uniform, layered in armor-
We cannot relinquish or let go of any of our killers-
Watching small boys draw with rough hands:
Cries, supplications, war, love-
A bride and groom beneath a sky of rockets.
So we celebrate: dabke, a wedding dress, Palestinian thobes, And rocketworks instead of fireworks.
The sight provokes him; he loads his gun:
Petals and Pale Signatures: Palestinian Voices on the Wall of Expansion.
My country famed for Palestinian Thobes and Dabka,
For love, for war, for murals in countless hues.
I once asked myself after seeing so many drawings,
Colors and paintings of unknown makers,
Rendered on the separation wall with precision and care,
The winding lines that betray the trembling hands,
As if each stroke were an unforgivable crime-Those drawings born from the womb of flight and dispossession,
From the largest womb of repression.
Those paintings, their artists unknown, May be led to justice or to inevitable death
If a hand sins by signing the art It carved a moment ago.
Strange that one hand can forge glory
And at the same time lead its owner to the abyss-
Or worse: "Beit Sahour".
