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When the Ice Broke - For Greta Thunberg

Palestine Return Centre©

They had her wrapped up neat,

pigtails and protest signs,

Sweden's little climate saint

speaking safe truths to power,

melting ice, dying bears,

nothing that threatened the machine's real gears.


But saints don't stay sanitised,

prophets won't be packaged.

The girl who wept for glaciers

learnt to weep for Gaza's kids,

found the same boot crushing polar ice

was stamping on Palestinian throats.


Now she sails dark waters,

flotilla cutting through empire's lies

like truth through comfortable silence.

Greta stands at the bow,

no longer their poster child

but something that makes them sick.


With Sarah, whom I walked picket lines

at Leicester's Elbit death factories,

documenting the assembly line of murder

before they locked her up,

another casualty in the war

against telling the truth.


And Tadhg who stood in solidarity's shadow,

Cork accent cutting through English air,

another Irish voice refusing silence,

knowing how empire tastes, how occupation feels,

understanding what we all know too well,

the powerful erase names rather than answer.


But it's Greta who breaks their hearts,

the climate darling who grew claws,

who learnt that saving the planet

means tearing down the war machine

brick by blood-soaked brick,

truth by dangerous truth.


They wanted her in her lane,

speaking only of carbon footprints,

keeping her mouth shut about the carbon scoring

of Gaza's hospitals, the smoke

from white phosphorus burning

schools, dreams, kids.


The terror state's rattled,

not at her words alone

but what she's become:

from acceptable rebellion

to uncomfortable solidarity,

from safe dissent to naming names.


She was their proof the system

could take criticism, their evidence

youth could rage within limits.

But she sailed past their borders,

past their comfort zones,

into waters where all fights meet.


The flotilla carries contraband hope,

bandages and baby formula

smuggled past naval blockades

while BBC and Sky News lose their minds,

how bloody dare she see the truth

they've spent billions trying to hide?


She's no longer the kid

they could pat on the head,

no longer the symbol they could use.

She's what keeps them awake at night,

a young woman who won't stay quiet,

who sees the whole bloody mess.


The media machine that once loved her

now questions her sanity, her right

to speak beyond climate change,

as if Earth's fever and Palestine's bleeding

weren't the same sickness,

as if you could heal half a body.


But the flotilla cuts through darkness,

Greta at its bow

like a figurehead carved from

Swedish steel and pure rage,

Palestine's fierce sister now,

their climate princess no more.


The terror state makes threats,

pulls diplomatic strings,

rattles sabres like dice in a cup,

but some storms won't be tamed,

some currents flow where they will,

empire or no empire.


She learnt you can't save the Arctic

while kids choke under rubble,

can't bang on about rising seas

while staying silent about rising fascism.

They wanted her pure, boxed in,

fighting only the right fights.


But she found the connections,

those corporations greenwashing campaigns

also make the machinery of murder,

the hands signing climate deals

also sign weapons contracts,

one system destroying both.


The Swedish girl became a hurricane,

their golden child grew teeth,

learnt that speaking truth to genocide

is the most dangerous thing going,

that sailing towards Gaza

is sailing towards justice.


She stands there wind-whipped,

salt spray mixed with tears of rage,

our walking conscience now,

their poster child no more,

showing us you can't pick and choose justice,

that every struggle's connected.


The flotilla cuts through Mediterranean night

like hope through imperial darkness,

carrying medicine like contraband,

solidarity like sacrament,

while Greta becomes the prophet

they fear most of all.


The terror state's threats just prove

what she already knew,

that speaking for the silenced,

sailing for the trapped,

standing with the crushed

is what saving the planet really means.


The flotilla sails on,

carrying more than supplies,

carrying the weight of waking up,

the cost of seeing clearly,

the guts to call genocide a genocide

while the world counts carbon credits.


And there she stands at history's bow,

humanity's daughter now, not Sweden's darling,

freedom's voice, not the climate's child,

wind in her face, fury in her heart,

proving sometimes the most dangerous thing

is a young woman who won't shut up.

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