“War does not decide who is right but who is left. ”- George Bernard Shaw.
It’s not hard to write about war. After all, wars of all kinds exist and thrive around us. Gender, geography, land, love, oil, orientation- any and every thing seems to be a cause for conflict. Papers scream bloody murder, social media explodes with outrage, candles-virtual and otherwise- are lit.
And life goes on for us. But not for those who know, for those who are in the middle of it all, who lose loved ones and feel anguish at their country being torn apart. And when poets write their words, what is created is profound and often, prophetic.
Mourid Barghouti says that, “You can read visionary poetry even in a refugee camp.” His deep dislike for embellishment is found in these lines that also reflect the end of war and its cost. “Silence said: truth needs no eloquence. After the death of the horseman/the homeward-bound horse/says everything without saying anything.”
His poem, It’s Also Fine, ends with these lines, “It’s fine to die with a white pillow, not the pavement, under our cheek/ with our hands resting in those of our loved ones/surrounded by desperate doctors and nurses/with nothing left but a graceful farewell/paying no attention to history/leaving this world as it is/hoping that, someday, someone else/will change it. “
We live with and amidst such apathy that we’re looking at someone else to change the world. These lines speak of the poet’s frustration at what he sees around him. The carnage, the bloodshed and not enough being done to change things. In Without Mercy, Barghouti humanises the soldier; he has a ‘distracted face’ and holds his ‘bright-sounding harmonica’. The poem juxtaposes killing and playing music. Music should create mercy, you’d think, but not in this case.
Poet Taha Muhammad Ali has a different take on the person who destroys his family. In Revenge, he chooses to be more compassionate, offering the benefit of the doubt, saying that if the killer was like him, without family, country and loved ones, then the poet wouldn’t add to his pain, choosing instead to ignore him, believing that this would be revenge in itself.
In A Night Unlike Others, Mourid Barghouti dreams of a dead child coming back to life( his school bag is marked by bullet holes and his notebooks are stained), only to end with these poignant words: “...how could a dead child come back/ like this, to his family/walking, calmly, under the shelling of such a very long night?”
A 14- year old girl child appears in Anat Zecharya’s poem that narrates the true story of a year-long sexual abuse by soldiers and staff. The child chooses to remain mute, unmoving because, the poet believes, she sees the greater glory of her country in her eyes.
Poets from a region of the world in deep, chaotic war. A war that divides humans but unites humanitarians. For, would you know from their themes, experiences and words which side of the conflicts these poets are on?
Dr. Srividya is a poet, teacher, blogger and speaker. Read her work at>www.rumwrapt.blogspot.in
