It’s four years since the Syrian archaeologist Khaled Al-Asaad was murdered for refusing to give away the location of antiquities in Palmyra as Daesh tore down the ancient city.
I wrote this poem then, and the song which you can listen to below.
Khaled
At what point can one say:
‘Preservation is complete’?
which pitted surface smoothed?
which sand-filled tomb exhumed?
at a closed junction
between life and death
man and bird wrestle
above traffic lights. You are
no Zenobia
no Roman house arrest
in exchange for a life’s
surrendered empire. And so
finally you kneel,
a final thought for
chipped faces off sarcophagi
your final restoration
wrist-twined
spectacles
still attached
