The Seed Keepers

This is a poem MG recited at one of the special assemblies we had in the last term. Something about it just so poignant and so sad... Palestine and it's olive tree...

The Seed Keepers

Fawaz Turki (born 1940)

Burn our land

burn our dream

pour acid onto our songs

cover with sawdust

the blood of our massacred people

muffle with your technology

the screams of all that is free,

wild and indigenous.

Destroy,

destroy

our grass and soil

raze to the ground

every farm and every village

our ancestors had built,

every tree, every home

every book, every law

and all the equity and harmony.

Flatten with your bombs

every valley

erase with your edits our past,

our literature; our metaphor.

Denude the forests and the earth

till no insect,

no bird

no word

can find a place to hide.

Do that and more.

I do not fear your tryanny

I do not despair ever

for I guard one seed

a little live seed

and I shall safeguard

and plant again.