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Ten Thousand Trees in Heaven
Nadia Refaei

At one of the most southern points in the world, in my garden in Nipaluna, there is a fig tree. Despite not belonging here, it fruits abundantly each year and produces enough for me to share with family, friends and my community. Native to my paternal homeland of Syria (as well as Palestine), the fig is an ancient plant that is incredibly resilient, long living and, unlike most fruit trees, produces greater harvests the older it is.

Composed from fragments of documentation — as my father helps me to tend to the fig tree in my garden, preparing it for its winter sleep and showing me how to prepare cuttings to give to friends — as well as poetry, memory, speculation, and references from Islam and song, Ten thousand trees in heaven emerges as a dialogue between between people, places and times.

Collaboration with Nasser Al Refaei

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Nadia Refaei is an artist and arts worker living on unceded land in Nipaluna, Lutruwita. Her practice explores cultural dislocation and negotiation through personal and collective histories, drawing from her Syrian and Cretan heritage and her family’s multigenerational experiences of migration. Nadia works across installation, video, writing, photography and relational and cultural practice to examine ideas of resistance, remembrance and repair — and how personal narratives can challenge dominant histories. She spent her childhood between so-called Australia and Saudi Arabia.

Editorial: Myranda Thomas
Digital: Amy Yu

Ten Thousand Trees in Heaven

Nadia Refaei

Bismillah alra7man a’ra7eem.

There is no fruit like
the fruit of Al Sham and
I remember the wild fig jam
made by my grandmother,
Allah yer7amha,
every year.

At one of the most
southern points in the world,
in my garden in Nipaluna,
in a place not meant for it,
not meant for me,
there is a fig tree.

The birds fly and soar higher, little by little,
and they see the world becoming smaller.

If there was a fruit that descended from heaven,
it would be a fig.

And what is a home without a fig tree? Incomplete!
And each one you plant now,
whether by your hand or another’s,
will be one thousand in the next life.

How does it survive here?
Thrive here and feed us?
Al shajara nafsa btit3lam.

And the fig orchards call to October,
my love.

Your grandfather, Allah yar7amoh,
planted a fig tree which became
so tall we would pick the fruit
from the top window.
Is it still there?
I think so.

I beg you, bird, you are traveling in their direction.

Along every river and creek.
I know you visit often and eat their fruits.
Swallow their seeds and take them with you.

Greet my loved ones for me,

Until the end of missiles and
empire and visas and borders and
unrest and unraveling…

And tell me how they are.