Dr Graham Allen is a poet and Professor of Modern English in the Department of English, UCC. “A Question” is from his forthcoming book with Salmon Press, No Rainbows Here. “It’s obviously about Palestine,” Graham says, “but it seems horribly relevant today.”
A Question
Imagine there was no place for you,
nowhere to rest on this fertile earth.
Tell me my friend, what would you do?
Dig a hole in the dust and disappear?
Grind your teeth and wail at the moon?
Curse God and teach your children to throw stones?
March together in hopeless defiance,
fists raised high against tanks and tear gas?
Or would you stay still and silent and die,
crammed into the one small box they allow you?
the men with dark glasses and heavy machine guns,
whose faces stayed blank when they murdered your boy.
Imagine there was no place for you,
nowhere to rest on this fertile earth.
Tell me my friend, what would you do?
Graham Allen