The ultimate rendition

is
to find a word
of quiet dignity, impeccably
connected (music, literature),
that will ask no questions
and will stop at nothing
(not the sending

of a man
across a sea by plane
to somewhere else so somewhere else
can torture him and we don’t have to)

and will make it seem
a mild necessity, it happens,

like the sea’s gesticulations,
clenching, heaving upwards
as the plane flies over,

like dread
that trickles coldly down the spine,

like handcuffing-sores, like sobs.

Hubert Moore

Hubert Moore is a British poet with six published poetry collections, of which the latest is The Hearing Room (Shoestring, 2006). This poem is also included in the just-published New Internationalist/Amnesty International collection Fire in the Soul: 100 Poems for Human Rights.

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ACTION DIRECTORY

International groups
Amnesty International www.amnesty.org
Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org

Concerning Guantánamo
Reprieve www.reprieve.org.uk
Cageprisoners www.cageprisoners.com

On surveillance
Electronic Frontier Foundation www.eff.org
Watching Them, Watching Us www.spy.org.uk

Australia
Civil Liberties Australia www.cla.asn.au

Britain
Liberty www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk

Canada
Canadian Civil Liberties Association http://ccla.org

New Zealand/Aotearoa
October 15th Solidarity www.october15thsolidarity.info/en/about
Peace Movement Aotearoa www.converge.org.nz/pma/nzterror.htm
Civil Rights Defence www.civilrightsdefence.org.nz

US
American Civil Liberties Union www.aclu.org
Center for Constitutional Rights http://ccrjustice.org
Peaceful Tomorrows www.peacefultomorrows.org

This article is from the November 2009 issue of New Internationalist.

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