Leavings
John Drew, mourning the untimely death of poet Riad Nourallah (1949-2018), comments: Riad's writing and teaching draw on the great humanist tradition of Islam. Best known for poems composed in the Arabic of his beloved Beirut, his works in English include King, a poetic novel evoking the pre-Islamic Arabia of the Mu'allaqat; The Death of Almustafa, a moving final volume to the story of Khalil Gibran's hero; an edition of, and comprehensive introductory essay on, W.S. Blunt's minor 19th century classic, The Future of Islam; Beyond the Arab Disease, a visionary road-map towards peace in the Middle East; and, for younger readers, The Messenger: A Verse Narrative and Loving Letters: An Islamic Alphabet. At his death, he was editing Blunt's World War I diaries.
(For Riad Nourallah)
No-one to flatter us now
for our bad verses,
to leave a jar of honey at the door
or hold the world on its axis.
Your body they took to Damascus
to be buried there.
You shrug wryly at that:
too many buried already,
Syria made a cemetery by war.
How many refugees now
stumble above your head?
You too have been on the road:
Palestine, Lebanon, Syria,
all inscribed on your brow
as well as the Fen Causeway.
They took your father's house
and gave it a new country,
leaving you with a legacy
of elegance and elegy.
They chased the cedars of Lebanon
into the blood-dark sea,
leaving their fragrant idiom
piquant upon your tongue.
Dispossessed of house after house,
you carried the world in your heart,
coming to muse, an Almustafa,
among the fenland cows.
You raised a family on dreams.
And now we are dispossessed
of you. This is the true nakba.
Of course, of course we are multitudes
in Gaza as in our graveyards
but also we are singular.
Singular in your eloquence,
you too came as a messenger,
moving among us mysteriously,
perhaps one of the seven just men
who walk the world unknown.
And suddenly you are gone.
You leave a wife grieving
as Khadija never had to,
a house composed of empty rooms
and a rich picking of poems
prime as Medjoul dates.
Selamat jalan, Riad!
Continue to build Jerusalem
among the shades!
John Drew is an occasional contributor to The Daily Star literature Page.
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