For peace-
Mar. 16th, 2008 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mary_j_59In memory of Rachel Corrie, and also Abir Aramin (Palestinian, age 10) and Smadar Elhanan (Jewish, age 14). May there be peace, and may we help to bring it, so that no other young girls will die.
The Words Under the Words , by Naomi Shihab Nye
Author's dedication: For Sitti Khadra (her grandmother), north of Jerusalem
My grandmother's hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat's new skin.
When I was sick, they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them
covering my head like cool prayers.
My grandmother's days are made of bread,
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,
lost to America. More often, tourists,
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.
My grandmother's voice says
nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.
She knows the spaces we travel through,
the messages we cannot send - our voices are short
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband's coat,
the ones she has loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.
They will plant themselves. We will all die.
My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere,
even in death.
When she speaks of the orchard
and the new olive press,
when she tells the stories of Joha
and his foolish wisdoms,
He is her first thought, what she really thinks is
His name.
"Answer, if you hear the words under the words -
otherwise it is just a world
with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets
full of stones."
(From 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye.
The Words Under the Words , by Naomi Shihab Nye
Author's dedication: For Sitti Khadra (her grandmother), north of Jerusalem
My grandmother's hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat's new skin.
When I was sick, they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them
covering my head like cool prayers.
My grandmother's days are made of bread,
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,
lost to America. More often, tourists,
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.
My grandmother's voice says
nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.
She knows the spaces we travel through,
the messages we cannot send - our voices are short
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband's coat,
the ones she has loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.
They will plant themselves. We will all die.
My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere,
even in death.
When she speaks of the orchard
and the new olive press,
when she tells the stories of Joha
and his foolish wisdoms,
He is her first thought, what she really thinks is
His name.
"Answer, if you hear the words under the words -
otherwise it is just a world
with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets
full of stones."
(From 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 01:34 pm (UTC)Happy Easter!