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'Lament for Syria': a teenager's poetic cry for her homeland

'Lament for Syria': a teenager's poetic cry for her homeland

Lament for Syria by Amineh Abou Kerech

Syrian doves croon above my head
their call cries in my eyes.
I’m trying to design a country
that will go with my poetry
and not get in the way when I’m thinking,
where soldiers don’t walk over my face.
I’m trying to design a country
which will be worthy of me if I’m ever a poet
and make allowances if I burst into tears.
I’m trying to design a City
of Love, Peace, Concord and Virtue,
free of mess, war, wreckage and misery.

 

Oh Syria, my love
I hear your moaning
in the cries of the doves.
I hear your screaming cry.
I left your land and merciful soil
And your fragrance of jasmine
My wing is broken like your wing.

 

I am from Syria
From a land where people pick up a discarded piece of bread
So that it does not get trampled on
From a place where a mother teaches her son not to step on an ant at the end of the day.
From a place where a teenager hides his cigarette from his old brother out of respect.
From a place where old ladies would water jasmine trees at dawn.
From the neighbours’ coffee in the morning
From: after you, aunt; as you wish, uncle; with pleasure, sister…
From a place which endured, which waited, which is still waiting for relief.

 

Syria.
I will not write poetry for anyone else.

 

Can anyone teach me
how to make a homeland?
Heartfelt thanks if you can,
heartiest thanks,
from the house-sparrows,
the apple-trees of Syria,
and yours very sincerely.

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Cooing doves, old women watering jasmine trees at dawn and a mother’s kindness are all images that a young Syrian poet and refugee has used to address the loss she feels after fleeing her homeland.

Teenager Amineh Abou Kerech left Syria in 2012, one year into the decade-long conflict which has devastated the country.

She recently participated in an event at the United Nations where she spoke about her poem “Lament for Syria” which won the UK’s prestigious Betjeman Poetry Prize in 2017.

She reads her poem for UN News.

Audio Credit
Conor Lennon/UN News
Audio
2'35"
Photo Credit
UNESCO