For more information on how to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, please go to Samidoun or support their work here
For Khalida Jarrar
The artist is in this work,
watching a political prisoner be taken
by pigs in black steel.
Their target finds it hard
not to feel shaken
there is sadness in his eyes
and resignation.
An apostle flees,
a friend kisses him without mercy.
The artist witnesses this work without
in the Scottish national gallery.
It’s like the painting has seized,
a window into a frozen moment -
any witnesses are pulled in too,
forced to see this scene and own it.
A sinner witnesses on both sides
an old suffering made modern;
the soldiers are both past & present,
the paths they march well trodden.
A sinner watches the scene
in two times: a Palestinian is arrested again.
It’s on the present to interrupt them,
it’s on the sinner to intervene.
The human race is in this work,
watching a prisoner taken in the dark.
And though the cause of love is few,
mercy’s light shines stark.
