Poetry

Regarding the List of 324 Iraqi Academics Assassinated

by  Beau Beausoleil
A close-up photograph of a partially burned book
Photo by Paul Domenick / Flickr

This shadowed
morning
you write
thought
and read
the garden

You
readjust
the graded
papers
in your
briefcase
and wait for
the enemies
of knowledge
to arrive

Teaching
is like
watering
a garden
you think

Everything
doesn’t grow
at once
but every
growing thing
needs water

Someone will
find your body
and next to it
the book that
holds the poems
that they came
to kill you
for writing

But
if you are
still alive
in an hour
you will drive
to the
university
and teach
your first class
 

 

Editorial note: This poem complements Persis Karim’s Shadow and Light poems from this same issue. 


Beau Beausoleil is a poet and activist (Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here) based in San Francisco, California. His most recent book of poetry is Another Way Home (Blue Light Press, 2022). 

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