When Ruth Hall, Subject Leader of Modern Languages at Dene Academy, near Durham, contacted us with a poem for our blog, we weren’t expecting it to be quite so heartbreaking.
Penned by Islam, a Year 10 pupil who arrived at the school as part of the Syrian Resettlement Scheme, it was originally written in Arabic, before being translated into English.
We think you’ll agree it’s breathtakingly powerful…
A child suffering harsh deprivation
He complains to God about the pain he faces
His father and mother dead
And all the parents have become without homelands and without countries
Become an orphan lost and homeless
A child without a country or address
He walks on that sidewalk and says,
Oh my country, what happened?
I have not found a home like Damascus, a home that embraces my soul
Today I lost all safety
An orphan child and life continues to give him a lot of suffering and pain
And winter came to the little one harshly, with cold and hunger
Hunger cripples him with all its cruelty, and cold is like aggression
Hiding in a box hoping to give him some tenderness
Death played with his soul lovingly
Come to eternal paradise
Come on, my little one, towards your mother, where you will receive bliss in Heaven
Come to your father, the martyr, for he is near the prophets and the chosen ones
The little boy died of winter and cold
From hunger and harsh deprivation
The little boy died without consolation for a people who were satisfied with humiliation and loss
By Islam, Year 10
Islam’s original poem, written in Arabic