Home
At the end, home is the body, every cell holding
light like the leaves on olive trees gesticulating in the wind. Every bone as
tender and firm as branch of olive, bark resonant with birdsong, heart ringed with privacy, every growth ring another year of
believing in life against the odds. Centuries collect in the shade, hard oval
firmness of bitter fruit shaken onto the earth by chapped brown hands. Through
the seasons, home stands, the body, witness to our humanness, as leaves sift
gray green light to the earth like rain.
Farewell Song
In Sidi Bou
Said we wandered steep paths
through the blue and white town
as you pointed out hidden beauties, childhood haunts.
Flower sellers called their wares.
You bought woven petals for our hair,
led us to a narrow shop of perfumes
where we dabbed our wrists with delicate scents --
Secrets of Carthage , Tunisian Nights --
aromas that lingered on skin like memory.
Climbing to a historic café
that clung to the hillside like a held breath
above the picture-perfect bay,
we turned a deaf ear to your cough,
your uphill breathlessness.
Instead, we sipped aromatic tea flecked with pine
nuts
drifting like lost boats on an amber sea,
listened to your stories of teenage years,
left the tea leaves with their future unread.
Later, at the seaside restaurant
where waves strummed the beach
and we toasted the night with Tunisian wine,
who among us dared acknowledge
the shadow at the edge of the moon,
the dark undertone limning our laughter?
The night we left Tunisia
there were final hugs, a flurry of thanks,
promises to meet again.
But as my children hurled themselves into your arms
I saw how you staggered slightly.
Long after our taxi turned the corner
leaving our Tunisian interlude behind,
we waved our goodbyes into the black predawn,
syllables of farewell strung out behind us
like stars, those flaming bodies
extinguished long before that still kindle our nights.
Yours was a song cut off on a high note.
But the years you lived still resonate,
a rich chord strummed across our days:
starlight streaming past its dying,
full moon transfixed at the moment of its waning,
the song of a man who lived and died
forever young.
In Memoriam: Faris Bouhafa
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40-something Palestinian woman,
curly brown hair, olive skin, hazel eyes,
loves music, nature, good stories
with happy endings, deprived
of a homeland for half a century,
seeks partner (tall-dark-handsome optional)
for peace-making, nation-building,
a little activist world-shaking.
Must be equitable, funny, kind;
committed to peace and human rights;
willing to follow international law.
Fondness for garlic and dancing (all kinds)
a plus. No photo necessary.
Peace
Peace is two children walking toward each other from
different sides of a barricade. Behind them are the tin shacks where they live
with their parents in desperation and loss. At the barricade they solemnly show
each other what they have brought. One child has a shovel, the other child a
watering can. Each has a seed. They dig the earth, plant the seeds, sprinkle water
carefully, then go home. Each day they meet again at the barricade to see if
the seeds have grown. When the first tiny shoots emerge they slap hands
gleefully through the fence. When a bud emerges they laugh out loud. When a
flower breaks to light, petals silken as sunshine, they go home humming a
flower song, each in their own language.
For Once
I don’t want to be the stone
tossed into the pond
the deep-noted plunging song
Let me be the ripple
twirling leaves in its wake
the shadow dance of light
the silvery current
whispering to fish
fins flashing in laughing air
Witness
Daily life is smashed against the anvil.
A child dies in a flare of bullets.
A woman starves that her family may eat.
Weeds burgeon by the roadside,
raise flowering voices to the sun.
Trees branch leafy promises.
In rocky fields, olive trees
lean into each other like old men.
Their trembling limbs bear witness.
What prayers I breathe are secular.
May I be tough enough to withstand the world,
fragile enough to deserve it.