“...I am not ready for your wounds and your truths.
you come back to me like a consolation."
Sarah Saleh
I am
waiting in the church of silence
not
opening my history book
ready
to call out the lies
for your
stories look me in the eyes
wounds
crawl on my body
and your
your gifts to me are
truths
jagged unwrapped strewn
you
and I gather the pieces of them
come
in a chorus of lamentations
back
where it all started and you say
to me
can you birth my howls
like
they are yours maybe
a consolation
Demolition
1.
she stood holding a pillow
clutching the tail of her
shirt
peering through
the toppled window frame
open
onto the grey concrete heap
the edge of the torn red curtain
unveils
echoes of bulldozers wrecking
her father’s hunched body
held
by the groove of dismayed
land his toddler’s hand
resting
on his dusty hair yearning
to fix his father’s
brokenness
at a distance a soldier’s bored
stare thunders upon the arid
hills
she stood holding a pillow
clutching onto the engraved
memory
2.
I kneel down
to pick up
one red anemone
I thought was there
the image of red
gets buried
in the downpour
of grey dust
Nothing is left but
a rewrite of stories
concrete heaps adorned
with the shards of something red
dance of mourning, yesterday’s gray dust
the wind moans
someone paints yesterday
a house, a smile, a red window
an awakened truth in the predawn hiding sun
no one counts tears
yesterdays laughter has no echo
the sun heats the rubble a dry fire ravaging life
stories are covered by gray dust.
It dwells where the house was it swallows
the keys to the toppled doors.
I rewrite I rewrite I rewrite I remember
I revive the account of the crimes we commit.
“Maybe if not one of us falls
We will all rise
Above this hell"
Maya Abu Al Hayat
Translated by Maya Abu Al Hayat and Naomi Foyle
and what if we smooth the wrinkles of the land
can we pick up the fallen
return to the before time
when Jacob met Esau with gifts
pretend that Yitzchak and Yishmael
ran away together
huddled around the fire
in the winter of the desert
and left behind their wish
for us to find?
Can we pick up the fallen
if we smooth the wrinkles of the land?
The daily brief
Counting backwards. Day 318 of a war.
Yesterday the yard flooded,
an email hollered at me-
“317 days of slaughter”.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 303 of a war.
Ishaq starved to death. His motorcycle
remained under the rubble,
he loved it. The motorcycle. He didn’t holler.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 300 of a war.
West of the city, carrying food on his
bike, Khaled rode too close
to the missile. Burial site unknown.
I apologized.
.
Counting backwards. Day 36 of a war.
I am at a conference. Unseasonably warm.
I brought the wrong clothes. Elham
dropped the embroidered bag when
a sniper’s bullet reached her.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 13 of a war.
In a poem Hiba wrote “We are not just
transients passing”. Her poems rippled
through the world, she was killed.
At home. An airstrike.
I apologized.
In a beginning. Day 1 of this war.
Clear sky, a small pond,
a gentle fall in SC. Horror
surges afar. No flutter in this pond.
I call home
I don't apologize.