They had already paid his fees.
I asked a rabbi demonstrating against us
if his people could imagine our sorrows.
Could they just hold their own thoughts for a moment
and imagine what we feel like?
He was quiet, staring at me.
I made a rabbi quiet.
Could he imagine the pain of the boy Ahmad Dawabsha,
only survivor of his family terribly burned
when the settlers threw a Molotov cocktail into
his house? No more mother, father, baby brother,
Ahmad, once the most beautiful little boy you can imagine,
Ahmad, now alone with sorrow and scars and pain,
wrapping his wounds. And this is what
the rabbi said: I don’t know. I don’t know
if we can imagine it.
And that is the problem.
Gratitude List
Thank you for insulting me.
You helped me see how much I was worth.
Thank you for overlooking my humanity.
In that moment I gained power.
To be forgotten by the wider world
and the righteous religious
and the weaponized soldiers
is not the worst thing.
It gives you time to discover yourself.
*
Lemons.
Mint.
Almonds roasted and salted.
Almonds raw.
Pistachios roasted and salted.
Cheese.
It Was or It Wasn’t
Arabic fairy tales begin this way,
so do Arabic days.
A pantry is empty
but Mama still produces a tray of tea and cookies
for the guest.
West is still the way we stare—
knowing there’s blue space and free water
over there. There’s a Palestinian and a Jew
building a synagogue together in Arkansas.
They’re friends, with respect.
Actually our water
isn’t free either
nor are the fish my friends in Gaza
aren’t allowed to catch.
It was or it wasn’t a democracy,
a haven
for human beings,
but only some of them.
You can’t do that with people,
pretend they aren’t there.
It was or it wasn’t a crowd.
Diploma, marriage, legacy,
babies being born,
children being killed,
it was or it wasn’t going to work out.
Gaza Is Not Far Away
(Dr. Luke Peterson)
1.
It’s in your cuffs.
The cup you just drank from.
Empty bucket outside back door with an inch of rain in it.
Sack of mulch to scatter on your winter beds.
Do you see these things as luxury?
It’s the crosswalk kids march in.
Mama with her yellow belt
waving them through. It’s rules.
It’s everything you keep a long time
in your refrigerator—pickles, tonic, apple butter.
Butter. The fact you have a refrigerator
and power to run it all day long.
Gaza might like that.
2.
The world’s largest open-air prison keeps ticking day to day—
alarm clocks, kindergartens, spinach mixed into eggs,
little blue backpacks for kids,
a few filtered-water fountains, plastic bottles carried home,
and no, they can’t go swimming, can’t fish in their own sea,
can’t fly from their airport, can’t visit the so-called Holy City,
can’t do anything, basically, except be human, be humane.
They can go to the Book Club and read books.
And people far away won’t turn their heads to see
what Gaza is doing or how well they are doing it.
Or how hard it is.
Even when 500 people die from bombs they supplied.
They won’t cry because the dead ones weren’t someone
they knew and loved. Like the person sitting next to them
on the couch.
My Wisdom
When people have a lot
they want more
When people have nothing
they will happily share it
*
Some people say
never getting your way
By now our character must be
deep and wide as a continent
Africa, Australia
giant cascade of stars
spilling over our huge night
*
Where did the power go?
Did it enjoy its break?
Is power exhausted?
What is real power?
Who really has power?
Did the generator break?
Do we imagine silence
more powerful because
it might contain everything?
Quiet always lives
inside noise.
But does it get much done?
*
Silence waits
for truth to break it
*
Calendars can weep too
They want us to have better days
*
Welcome to every minute
Feel lucky you’re still in it
*
No bird builds a wall
*
Sky purse
jingling
change
*
Won’t give up
our hopes
for anything!
*
Not your fault
You didn’t make the world
*
How dare this go on and on?
cried the person who believed in praying
God willing God willing God willing
There were others who prayed
to ruins & stumps
*
Open palms
hold more
*
Refuse to give
mistakes
too much power
*
Annoying person?
Person who told me to stay home
and do what other girls do?
If you disappeared
I still might miss you
*
Babies want to help us
They laugh
for no reason
*
Pay close attention to
a drop of water
on the kitchen table
*
You cannot say one word about religion
and exclude Ahmad
Each Day We Are Given So Many Gifts
I did it
I made friends with a fly
Yawn a little pause
relighting breath
Blink a break
from sun’s sharp gaze
Yesterday evening after rain
the world tiled rosy
such a brief slip of minutes
as if someone got her wish
we could live in pink hold a shining note
release someone else’s anger
Jerusalem
Not your city—
everyone’s city.
Not my city—
everyone’s city.
City of time—
holding time.
Deeper than time.
Time’s true city.
Missing It
Our cousin Sami said at night when he can’t sleep
he thinks about everything he missed that day.
Which way didn’t he turn his head?
Whose face didn’t he notice?
He gets the answer to the problem he missed
on the test. He fin
ally remembers where they buried
the one cat who sat in anyone’s lap.
A Person in Northern Ireland
Sends me a message with a quote
from Rainer Maria Rilke, a German poet:
“And now let us believe
in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of
things that have never been.”
That’s sort of what I’m afraid of.
38 Billion
It’s hard to grasp very big numbers and distant concepts.
Like imagining what all our thoughts might have been
if we lived 300 years ago. Would they be centered
on a goat or six rocks piled together
or would they be wide as they are now?
In those long-ago days,
would people be meaner to one another
or nicer? I have no idea. But sometimes I wonder what
38 billion dollars could buy, instead of weapons aimed
against us and this is what comes to mind:
Eggs. Pencils. Undershirts of very soft cotton.
Ribbons. Radios. Shining flashlights.
Handmade clay plates. Chocolates. Really soft pillows.
Baskets. Bracelets. Running shoes.
Better Vision
In Ramallah, optical stores polish their glittering windows
and wait patiently, stocking shiny displays,
curatives for nearsighted, farsighted, astigmatism,
too much sun. My mother’s eye swells from allergy.
Mabrook! to ourselves in the round mirrors
when suddenly the world looks sharper.
Or Tikkun Olam, as our Hebrew-speaking
brothers and sisters might say, repair for the world,
see close, see far, see how similar we are,
or could be, if the hatchets weren’t hanging over
half our heads. Tarifi Optical, “rest your eyes from the rays,”
we’d rather rest our eyes from people who can’t see us.
I’ll take wide angle please, give me the whole horizon,
citizens of magnificent olive tones, curly-headed, braided,
kaftans, grandma gowns, exercise shirts, cotton dresses,
people holding hands like a children’s book,
standing on the globe,
round as a floating pupil.
Tarifi Optical invites us to “swap inelegant squinting”—
I love their words, maybe I could be an optician,
focused on better sight for all, and work at the Ottica shop,
“premier inspiration destination”
for top brands of eyeglasses in the West Bank,
did you know we have such things?
People think of us differently.
We may be in prison, but we still love beauty.
We may be oppressed, but we are smart.
We may think we don’t need glasses, but the big E
for equality has been lying on its back
for a long time now
kicking its legs in the air like an animal
that needs help to get up.
The Space We’re In
echoes deeply
Time doesn’t just crumple
the minute you turn the calendar page
I’m not sure about a country being great
I don’t know what that means
It sounds like bragging or more weapons
I want a country to be nice to all people
Make them feel better
than people feel by themselves
Compassionate and gentle
I want people to
move more slowly
pay better attention
share what they have
In the old Palestinian tradition
everyone was invited in
Sit down, coffee or tea?
Mint in your tea?
Dates?
even if you didn’t know the visitor
America being mean to Palestine
is nothing new
reminds me of
the dark side of junior high school
those who think you can have
only one best friend
usually end up
lonely
No Explosions
To enjoy
fireworks
you would have
to have lived
a different kind
of life
II.
EVERYTHING CHANGES
San Francisco Zen Center
Facebook Notes
Many say to Janna, Take care of yourself.
We are praying for you. Janna, you are so brave.
You run outside, our spirits go with you.
Others say you are too young to do this on your own.
Pushed forward as mouthpiece. You have charisma
so people use you as spokesperson. What’s wrong
with that? A senator from Planet Young? I’ll take
anyone but what we’ve got. Our letters to editors
trickled out for decades. What good did they do?
You are the witness, on-the-scene, microphone in
hand. You stand on the road to everywhere,
asking, What is this? What next?
We carry you with us wherever we go,
folded document of hope, unfolded flag,
unburdened alphabet, asking why.
Mediterranean Blue
If you are the child of a refugee, you do not
sleep easily when they are crossing the sea
on small rafts and you know they can’t swim.
My father couldn’t swim either. He swam through
sorrow, though, and made it to the other side
on a ship, pitching his old clothes overboard
at landing, then tried to be happy, make a new life.
But something inside him was always paddling home,
clinging to anything that floated—a story, a food, or face.
They are the bravest people on earth right now,
don’t dare look down on them. Each mind a universe
swirling as many details as yours, as much love
for a humble place. Now the shirt is torn,
the sea too wide for comfort, and nowhere
to receive a letter for a very long time.
And if we can reach out a hand, we better.
To Netanyahu
My Palestinian father named his donkey after you.
Yahu—everyone thought it was for the Internet,
but he knew. Now I think he insulted the donkey.
The donkey was friends with a horse, in a field.
They didn’t have much, but they shared it.
Pink flowers in spring—neither of them
tried to rule the field.
Your army just bombed a U.N. center for refugees.
Gaza, imprisoned in poverty for decades—
take that! More blood for supper.
Years since my father died,
his donkey still stands quietly
gazing from enormous eyes,
hanging his humble head.
Pharmacy
It stuns me to see the oldest man in the world buying shaving cream. He is also buying shampoo and boxed cookies, square sand tarts, a sack of chocolate peppermints. The amount of hope contained in these purchases, considering his bowed posture, his pale suit, majestic movements, his cane with a plastic coin purse attached near the handle, cannot be weighed. I think of the ten-year-old journalist photographing a demonstration of her people at home, shouting out bravely to the soldiers that threaten them, We just want to be left alone on our land. What is wrong with being on our land? And consider the terrain of this ancient man’s own American life. Who walked it with him, who held his hand? Today he is by himself. He will step out the automatic sliding doors of the pharmacy with great effort, hauling his plastic sack of purchases, and step careful
ly into his car at the special marked parking place, and drive away, ever so slowly. I don’t know what the little girl will do.
My Father, on Dialysis
wrote a book about Palestine called
Does the Land Remember Me?
He wrote it in longhand on scraps of paper
as his blood filtered through the big machine
He was not afraid to watch it
circulate
Nurses and aides asked him
What are you doing?
He said, planting a garden
of almonds and figs
Dipping sprigs of mint into
glasses of steaming tea
Breathing the damp stones
of my old city
Pressing my mind into the soul
of an olive tree
Blood on All Your Shirts
Even your skinny ribbed undershirt
your favorite blue guayabera
A long life of travel ends in seepage
Holes in the skin
Difficult comebacks
The graft and the duct and the valve
Flirting with nurses a hopeful distraction
Maybe they’d prick you more kindly
If you listened to their marital woes
Telling how deft and lovely they were
How ruddy their cheeks
angelic their smiles
My Immigrant Dad, On Voting
As a journalist I copied down what candidates said
But I didn’t believe them
No hardly ever
If you paid attention
the people who got elected
always seemed to be crooks
after the election
Elections made me think though
At least we had them
At least people pretended
Once my friend ran for mayor and I felt excited
I know
I should have been more enthusiastic
Jimmy Carter was the only one I trusted
He saw us as human beings
He wasn’t afraid to say Apartheid which of course
it was and always has been
He got in trouble for being honest
I wrote him a letter
Said he was the best president I ever had
You Are Your Own State Department
Each day I miss Japanese precision. Trying to arrange things