<> (pray for the grace of accuracy)
Words repeated
until they lose all meaning
Once it was
desert desire dream
but the sand image failed
the dune was death the desire
dark fragments
one would not own
as own in daylight
woven too tight with
submission
power none of it is
as imagined dream
emptiest of all
for its bottomless nature for its
brash foolishness
Now
I want to disallow
mangled howl severed
limbs lean and curved
shapes on the page sounds
in my mouth
that say too little claim
to know but finally stand
empty empty as
empty
as the emptied house
<> (emptied house)
Outside the emptied house
there were soldiers on their knees
in the sand
sifting for body parts moving
forward in a line they
crawled inch by inch through
sand gravel glass and weeds
wild with metal splinters
in search of lost slivers
of flesh skin nails smallest
drops of not-yet dried blood
that would have been brothers
blown up on patrol jeep and men
disappeared
into thin air this is no
smoke and mirrors magic trick
nothing left
resembling the human
but soldiers on their knees
in the sand
<> (soldiers on their knees in the sand)
Grandfather who cut his nails
every Friday
before sunset and before his peaceful
Sabbath queen arrived
would save the pale slivers in a box
to be buried with him
Dust must return to dust he said
with not a single piece missing
The dream was of the day
the dead would rise
to be whole in the next world
The mothers watching
soldiers on their knees
sifting and searching for body parts
do not think of next worlds
they think only of
lost worlds:
their sons my sons
in the setting sun
building tunnels and towers
in the sand
<> (their sons my sons)
Lost limbs again
this time in a strawberry field
Early morning January sun rises
gently talks softly to yesterday's
rain lingering still at field's edge
where perfect strawberries are ready for eating
first day of the feast festival of the sacrifice
Ishmael taken to the hilltop Isaac carried away
This time it is mother Maryam who does not know
the boys her boys woke early to a school-less day
they are racing now through the strawberry field
The red fruit is full sweet with dew and dawn
is collecting night's blankets day is waiting to spread
her arms around us all in the fields and the boys cannot
say how from where there was no sign a bomb would fall
in the early morning family field the boys do not know their legs
are bleeding their bodies lie still their limbs scattered half-boys
and dead boys none of them know how
later before the funerals after the hospital Maryam
will return to the charred and beautiful
bleeding strawberry field
to gather in her scarf scattered flowers
and flesh
[Gaza 11-1-05: bomb falls on 12 boys in a field. 7 boys killed; the 5 wounded all lost limbs]
<> (press release)
January 26th 2004
Nobody was killed in al Nabi Saleh tonight
Only
500 old and young
forced to stand hours in the cold
in the middle of night
in the rain
in the range
of snipers on the watchtower
and the children
in flannel pajamas with coats thrown over
thick in layers too loose and bulky to hold
sweet calves baby buffalo their feet pushed hurried
into shoes without socks their small finger bones
cold clay brittle in their parents' hands their faces
still soft in sleep but eyes waking would be
eager or earnest now pulled to screeching jeeps and
wild searchlights scattering sharp-cut lightbeams
like diamond treasures dreams in the dark
megaphones calling out calling names cutting
silence into strips and coloring their racing hearts
crayon black
in the middle of the night
in the rain
in the range
of snipers
the children
thinking they dream
<> (a dream)
The burnt-out bus carcasses
reared up their mangled heads
and started to howl.
At every death site every intersection
across the city metal jagged
scorched black glass
splinters for eyes limbs scattered low
and high between the seats under unimagined
ache of ancient beasts.
One curled around a stilled body held it
close like the baby who just finished
crying there
the holding the touching the tender
place of nestled after all the while
the bloody buses
across the city howling and in my dream
I knelt down beside the tender one
and asked it
to make room for me too.
After Five Years of Writing Buffalo Poems
I wondered what had happened to the Buffalo.
One day she was gone disappeared
from the page
There had been a moment of beckoned listening
on a charred hillsidewhere I found her no she
found me though she never made a sound only
my heart heard her stillness in the wadi and the heavy
haze crackled with the slight hum of her curved back its
furred arch pushing upward against the unforgiving
sky pregnant threats in the air it was rounded
like a woman's lovely belly as though a baby could push
out of her back into the day a different day unmaimed un
named by fire or fear: athena in full armour glorious
out of Zeus' aching forehead the woman ready for war why
do I long for her virgin goddess could she protect
my children athena adina guard my sister's health her shield
glows in the midday middle-east sunblinds soldiers freedom
fighter terrorists generals slowly she raises her arms have you seen
the leafless oak tree at incline its branches luminous and filled
with hope in the wadi the buffalo imagined baby dark beast
trudged off I didn't even notice until she was gone and I
kept calling as though in her name there was a moment but
not mine to keep now I write buffalo poems
in her absence