the way they would. I miss the call to prayer
at Sharjah, the large collective pause. Or
the shy strawberry vendor with rickety wooden cart,
single small lightbulb pointed at a mound of berries.
In one of China’s great cities, before dawn.
Forever I miss my Arab father’s way with mint leaves
floating in a cup of sugared tea—his delicate hands
arranging rinsed figs on a plate. What have we here?
said the wolf in the children’s story
stumbling upon people doing kind, small things.
Is this small monster one of us?
When your country does not feel cozy, what do you do?
Teresa walks more now, to feel closer to her
ground. If destination within two miles, she must
hike or take the bus. Carries apples,
extra bottles of chilled water to give away.
Kim makes one positive move a day for someone else.
I’m reading letters the ancestors wrote after arriving
in the land of freedom, words in perfect English script …
describing gifts they gave one another for Christmas.
Even the listing seems oddly civilized,
these 1906 Germans … hand-stitched embroideries for dresser
tops. Bow ties. Slippers, parlor croquet, gold ring, “pretty
inkwell.”
How they comforted themselves! A giant roast
made them feel more at home.
Posthumous medals of honor for
coming, continuing—could we do that?
And where would we go?
My father’s hope for Palestine
stitching my bones, “no one wakes up and
dreams of fighting around the house”—
someday soon the steady eyes of children in Gaza,
yearning for a little extra electricity
to cool their lemons and cantaloupes, will be known.
Yes?
We talked for two hours via Google Chat,
they did not complain once. Discussing stories,
books, families, a character who does
what you might do.
Meanwhile secret diplomats are what we must be,
as a girl in Qatar once assured me,
each day slipping its blank visa into our hands.
Elementary
At the 100-year-old National Elk Refuge
near Jackson Hole, we might ask,
How long does an elk live?
Who’s an old elk here?
We’d like to spend time
with an elder elk please.
Tell us how to balance our lives
on this hard edge of human mean,
mean temperatures, what we do and don’t
want to mean.
Closing the door
to the news will only make you
stupid, snapped my friend
who wanted everyone to know as much
as she did. I’m hiding in old school books
with information we never used yet.
Before I drove, before I flew,
before the principal went to jail.
Sinking my eyes into tall wooden
window sashes, dreaming of light
arriving from far reaches,
our teachers as shepherds,
school a vessel of golden hope,
you could lift your daily lesson
in front of your eyes,
stare hard and think,
this will take me
somewhere. O histories of India,
geological formations of Australia,
ancient poetries of China, Japan,
someday we will be aligned in a place
of wisdom, together.
Red deer, wapiti, running elk rising
above yellow meadows at sundown.
An elk bows her head. In the company
of other elk, she feels at home.
And we are lost on the horizon now,
clumsy humanity,
deeper into the next century than we
can even believe,
and they will not speak to us.
On the Old Back Canal Road by the International Hotel, Guangzhou
Janna, you are here too
everywhere
your curious thoughts
delicately constructed
You reside in every dream
of human rights
eating hummus made by Palestinians
where the green water weaves
between brick channels
stacked lives
laundry strung from balconies
geraniums popping red yeses
somewhere a radio playing
a very old song
three notes up and down
speaking to one another
inside the rounded mind
observatory
new and old harmonizing here
Everywhere I go
you’re like the bodyguard
our slim complaints
in such a vast world
(they thought I stole the pencil box
from my room—
I had just moved it)
but no one shouting
in front of my hotel
Begone!
Gray Road North from Shenzhen
Stretching, stretching.
Sober pavement, a fog of skyscrapers,
looming gray clouds. Not one moving human
visible outside. How loud the loneliness of workers
abandoning villages for the long shifts,
disappearing into factories,
brief breaks, stark apartments
where their second pair of gray pants waits.
Stun
Who’s remembering
Yemen had the most
amazing architecture
in the world?
Yemenis remember.
No one mentions this on the news.
Bomb explodes, bus
of schoolchildren.
Their glory also
unmentioned.
*
Sometimes I just call out to Dubai.
Dubai! I say. If you can build new
buildings like that,
can’t you help us?
*
We stood in the parking lot
of the hospital after Daddy died.
I couldn’t remember how
to open a car door.
All I Can Do
“We have such a beautiful country, but it’s not been
utilized before for this kind of tourism …”
George Rishmawi, AramcoWorld
One hand out against the earth,
one hand up against the sky.
Somehow I walk between them.
They carry messages through my body,
on a cord stretched between far places.
What could have been, what might be …
Some days it’s all I can do
to stand still and answer you.
In Some Countries
There were people who had a hundred handbags.
People who hired maids to take care of their maids.
You could float down the Rhine and see castles.
Dogs wore coats for daily walks in Central Park.
A dog’s diamond collar glistened.
We were not dreaming of these things for ourselves.
We needed basics, starting small.
Hello, you look like a human being to me.
It’s hard to know what open roads mean
if you’ve always had them.
We can’t imagine
the luxury of open roads.
Seeing His Face
For Jaffar, in Dubai
When you said, first thing picking me up
at airport—If he wins, we would have to see his face,
hear his voice, that wou
ld be so bad for all of us—
we could still laugh. Day before election, 2016,
—surely this could not happen.
Next day, we reeled into a bright sky,
driving to a school, pummeled by morning news—
desperately you kept flicking radio stations
Arabic, English, Farsi, saying, I’m afraid
it just happened. How could it happen?
would pass me a note, WTF?
Small children gathering, notebooks, pencils,
how could I speak a word, now that my own country
took such a swerve? Little girls in dark uniform sweaters,
with buttons. Smiling up. Tell us where to begin.
Wales
Once a friend drove me from England into Wales for one hour’s visit and that single hour was enough to suggest, for time immemorial, there are so many ways in which America can never be first. Black and white cows, nibbling gently between layered hillsides. Shocking radiance of green under silent drifting poufs. Sheep dodging up a rise, leaping alongside lined white stones. No wires, billboards, poles, not a scrap of rubbish, not a rubbish bin. Two hikers with blue backpacks lounging in a meadow. Approaching a V in the skinny one-lane pavement, my friend asked which way I wanted to turn. How would I know? Was there a preferred way? He paused. No, it is equally perfect every direction. Sorry, America. Who could say this about you?
Peace Talks
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Trouble
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Talk
Nothing
Freedom of Speech (What the head-of-school told me)
We would appreciate
if you would not
(you know
in this strange climate
taking all into account
problems we have had
misunderstandings
angry parents
insults
Facebook postings
teachers being fired
demonstrations
floods)
mention the president
Jerusalem’s Smile
My father speaks from the heaven
we don’t believe in
Assign nothing to Jerusalem
Who is that man pretending power
over my stones?
No one with guns will ever own me
Cobbled stones feel my smile
kingdom of heaven set into sunrise
layers of giant time
They hold so many feet
tromping daily for centuries
all those bowed heads
folded hands secret glories
are part of me
See how the man of power
stands at a podium
imagining he can say who I am
where I belong in the constellation
of cities
Trust me
I last longer than he does
shabbiest vendor
belonging to air
On the Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King
Instead of Donald Trump, I will think of Dr. King’s dignity,
his resonant voice, conviction, inclusion.
Instead of Donald Trump, I will think of Steve Ng of New Mexico,
who brought personal handmade clay cups
from his home kitchen to a writing workshop at Ghost Ranch.
Otherwise we would have been drinking
from little disposable cups.
Steve carried in two cardboard boxes, set up a table,
arranged blue, gray, elegantly designed vessels in two rows.
Pick which one you like best.
The cups helped us feel cozier, as if Ghost Ranch
could really be our home for a week.
From Steve’s writing, one line:
If I have the time to watch the shadows along the trees move, I can say I
am satisfied.
False Alarm Hawai‘i
Heavy branches, orange tangerines. Emergency alert texted to telephones throughout islands said, Take Cover. Missile has been launched. This is not a drill. My husband was sitting north of Honoka‘a on Hawai‘i Island at a table, doing his work. No television in the house. So he waited, confused. Take cover? Dive under a chair? 40 minutes till they said, False Alarm. In Gaza it is rarely a false alarm. It really happens. Later it is backpage news, but the schools, clinics, art centers, people are destroyed. In Honolulu, children were escorted down manholes. Hysterical students running hard along beaten gray paths at university in Manoa. I love you, I love you! Sometimes Hawai‘i misses itself, true self before strip centers and public parking. It has everything it needs, but too many people want it now. Think what could be annihilated in a few seconds and has been, before. Kids at the American School in Tokyo distribute Hiroshima T-shirts before leaving on their annual Hiroshima camping trip. Who could wear it? Who could sleep?
A Palestinian Might Say
What?
You don’t feel at home in your country,
almost overnight?
All the simple things
you cared about,
maybe took for granted …
you feel
insulted, invisible?
Almost as if you’re not there?
But you’re there.
Where before you mingled freely …
appreciated people who weren’t
just like you …
divisions grow stronger.
That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do.
(Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens.
Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.)
Yes, a wall. Ours came later but …
who talks about how sad the land looks,
marked by a massive wall?
That’s not a normal shadow.
It’s something else looming over your lives.
Alien Rescue
1.
For years I have loved the line: Elimination is the secret of
chic (Balenciaga) but in the case of one’s home being washed away by
mud, or storm, or Israeli bulldozer, this might not apply.
Poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge wrote: “He says problems in Israel can be
solved by extra-terrestrials …”
Land here, friends. Welcome!
The Mount of Olives could use a new chapter in its story.
2.
The thing which did not go right haunts from inside
like a splinter gained from swiping a hand
across the broken chair, in sorrow.
Chair carrying echoes.
Villages humming songs of the absent ones.
Please remember we too were rooting for things to be firm.
Why is that hard to imagine?
Anthony Bourdain made everyone come to the same table.
How loud the echo right before dawn.
3.
Her voice a library of kindness.
I hear pages rustling, hungry fingers
moving through stories. If you were very alone,
you would want this voice to find you.
The Sweeper
They say she has moved to another village
to be with her cousins. Always we heard the rhythm
of brush, brush, the predictable swish of
a broom’s old hairs, the straw of continuing,
yes, yes, make it better, tired but still working,
morning and evening the sweep, the rustle,
how could it be such a soft thing helped our sanity?
Litter of leaves, branch bits gathering,
she did not say goodbye.
Arab Festival T-shirt
SEATTLE 2007. I wasn’t even there,
but wear th
is shirt proudly all the time.
Since when Arab Tragedy only? No!
Forgetting spread tables, smoky eggplant,
tiny spinach pies, punctuating pomegranate seeds,
neat almond in the center
of each rectangle of harissa,
since when we put down embroideries, joy,
birth certificates of stitching and knotting,
naming of constellations,
discovery of equations,
dancing with the handkerchief, oud and drum,
we will teach our children, guard our skeins
of blue and red thread,
refusing to forget laughter even if the world forgets
we ever have it
and this T-shirt with bright turquoise
and orange lettering on brave black says so.
One Small Sack in Syria
The vendor filled it fuller than it needed to be.
He wanted to make his shoppers happy.
He shook the roasted pistachios
redolent with charcoal and fire
into all corners of the brown paper bag
and smiled, folding the edge.
He said, Very good nuts.
Long road to Aleppo.
He said, Say hello to Aleppo.
Positivism
My friend in Gaza writes to me:
Gaza Strip is really so wonderful … regardless of the siege … the sea port, the green fields, peaceful roads decorated with many red, pink, white and orange flowering trees, decent people, elegant restaurants and hotels with fascinating views … We wish … the crossing borders are always open where we can travel freely and friends can come to visit us freely as well …
Fresh as a new notebook—that’s how anyone wanted to live.
Hopeful as a pencil sharpened,
clear as one beam of light landing on the table’s far side.
The children dove into a story and flew far away.
Even those who had never been to an airport
or seen a plane land at close range.
This was our superpower, retaining imagination
in worst days. They smiled shyly.
They expressed no blame.
Regret
To forgive ourselves for what we didn’t do
Replay a scene over and over in mind