Poetry

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If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/poetry

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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

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It is, of course, a tragic and beautiful poem on its own, but another thing I find interesting is that it's been translated into a ton of languages, so if you speak another language, you can see for yourself how translation changes a work: https://ifimustdie.net/

The Malay version rhymes, for some reason. And there are quite a few small changes in meaning: the line "bringing back love" is changed to "bringing back a love that had left", presumably for the rhyme to work.