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It was raining
Really raining
When we arrived in Ramallah
You from Sur Baher
(Jerusalem)
A place from another poem
(2015)
You taught me a new word
Sounding funny to my ears and maybe to yours too: mablulah
Wet
I knew when we were rounding
The corner to the hotel
Even in driving rain
Since Qais had shown me on google maps
(Dughri, dughri)
Past where he studied American English
(Hell, yeah)
Marking the map for a lover or a friend
I was here before,
RamAllah
One day then
(2017)
Five days
Now
Staying over
Together
Till morning
We posed for a picture
Outside Sakakini Center
Not close yet, you can tell from the picture.
Inside I saw art and young people
On every floor
And Khalil Sakakini’s card
(which I had read about on JSTOR)
was there
“A Human Being, God Willing”
And my card says
Middle East Studies Librarian
Because I was there before
(1987-88: Intifada.)
And have been thinking of you
Ever since.
I haven’t been able
To shake off the dust,
The stories from the combatants, the lovers
Heard then, and still now
Lissa,
Listen
We ate together
And became closer
Heart and liver
with pomegranate
You showed me
The water canisters
(fear)
How the British divided
the city into sectors
(to control)
The watch on the lion
(a good story)
And with The Mahdi
Appeared high school students
Marching
(a common sight)
Appeared high school students
Marching
(a common sight)
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And the three of us
To the art funder’s new building
A cube of glass and steel
The library still in boxes
Encyclopedia of Palestine
And a view designed
For visitors
And walking from there
The striated earth
Cut
For this road
And this building
And I heard the stories
Behind your art
Ancient
Common
You’re telling them
Anew
For our time
For your younger brother
To the art funder’s new building
A cube of glass and steel
The library still in boxes
Encyclopedia of Palestine
And a view designed
For visitors
And walking from there
The striated earth
Cut
For this road
And this building
And I heard the stories
Behind your art
Ancient
Common
You’re telling them
Anew
For our time
For your younger brother
In Mandela Square
The Mahdi appears again
Sitting in the shadow
of His raised fist
Amandla/Hurriyeh
And if you looked down
(we did)
His famous quote embedded
In the pavement
The Arabic dots
Squares of metal
Pounded
Cemented
Strong
And I sent our picture there
To Albie
So he could see.
(Albie Sachs. Look him up, but know the Wikipedia is wrong. Instead read: The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter.)
The Mahdi appears again
Sitting in the shadow
of His raised fist
Amandla/Hurriyeh
And if you looked down
(we did)
His famous quote embedded
In the pavement
The Arabic dots
Squares of metal
Pounded
Cemented
Strong
And I sent our picture there
To Albie
So he could see.
(Albie Sachs. Look him up, but know the Wikipedia is wrong. Instead read: The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter.)
And the next night, at Sakakini,
The young people
Set it up:
Albie in his study
Capetown
With Ethiopian Bible scene framed
Behind him
(Painted or Embroidered? I can’t remember. Which scene? He wasn’t sure.)
And his son
Behind him
And in Ramallah
the young people
Leaning forward
To be with Albie
No one asked Albie
If he had been to Palestine
Even to “that part of the world”
If they asked
Yes, he had been
In Ramallah
And Gaza
With Arafat
An emissary from one
Movement
To another
Qais remembers
What Arafat said to Albie
But I’ve forgotten.
(That day in East Lansing
at the museum:
All feelings and a winter glove lost
as soon as it was acquired.)
I know
That Albie drafted
The ANC Code of Conduct
(No Torture)
Which was discussed
Widely and then belonged to all
So, meet!
Discuss widely
Using old tools
And new.
Old materials
and touch through the screen
Someone on the other side of the world.
(it’s possible!)
Create together
Here and there
You and me
The young people
Set it up:
Albie in his study
Capetown
With Ethiopian Bible scene framed
Behind him
(Painted or Embroidered? I can’t remember. Which scene? He wasn’t sure.)
And his son
Behind him
And in Ramallah
the young people
Leaning forward
To be with Albie
No one asked Albie
If he had been to Palestine
Even to “that part of the world”
If they asked
Yes, he had been
In Ramallah
And Gaza
With Arafat
An emissary from one
Movement
To another
Qais remembers
What Arafat said to Albie
But I’ve forgotten.
(That day in East Lansing
at the museum:
All feelings and a winter glove lost
as soon as it was acquired.)
I know
That Albie drafted
The ANC Code of Conduct
(No Torture)
Which was discussed
Widely and then belonged to all
So, meet!
Discuss widely
Using old tools
And new.
Old materials
and touch through the screen
Someone on the other side of the world.
(it’s possible!)
Create together
Here and there
You and me
And at the end of the evening
You so moved
By the presentation of the South African Bill of Rights
(“Justice Under A Tree”)
And many sweets left over
The set table waiting
Should The Mahdi come.
You so moved
By the presentation of the South African Bill of Rights
(“Justice Under A Tree”)
And many sweets left over
The set table waiting
Should The Mahdi come.
A different day I visited your studio
The space and your tools
Small
Delicate
And I saw your work
And was so moved
Seeing and feeling
The cactus and the doorframe
Preserved
Yet ready to move
The shoe about to drop
The walls closing in.
And I placed the small painting
Lansing Cactus #1
On a stand, on my immigrant grandmother’s
Singer sewing machine
Under the etching of Jerusalem
From my mother’s house
Another night,
I visited the young people
The counterparts of
Jaime Aryeh Aleeya
Joan Ashley Ally
Lauren Mehrdad.
The space and your tools
Small
Delicate
And I saw your work
And was so moved
Seeing and feeling
The cactus and the doorframe
Preserved
Yet ready to move
The shoe about to drop
The walls closing in.
And I placed the small painting
Lansing Cactus #1
On a stand, on my immigrant grandmother’s
Singer sewing machine
Under the etching of Jerusalem
From my mother’s house
Another night,
I visited the young people
The counterparts of
Jaime Aryeh Aleeya
Joan Ashley Ally
Lauren Mehrdad.
Salem
met me
(I was lost in Bir Zeit Old Town)
Salem who we first met in the video
Salem of the wet hair
(naiman!)
Who lives so close to the colony
(his word)
of Beit Eel
(seen through his window, on the video)
How/Eichah
(my word)
Has The House of God
(Beit El)
Become a snake
met me
(I was lost in Bir Zeit Old Town)
Salem who we first met in the video
Salem of the wet hair
(naiman!)
Who lives so close to the colony
(his word)
of Beit Eel
(seen through his window, on the video)
How/Eichah
(my word)
Has The House of God
(Beit El)
Become a snake
And Khaled was there
Posing upside-down
For the camera
Folding folding folding
Folding folding
Folding
Origami t-shirt
Prototype made of paper
Will be cloth next spring
(haiku)
Posing upside-down
For the camera
Folding folding folding
Folding folding
Folding
Origami t-shirt
Prototype made of paper
Will be cloth next spring
(haiku)
And the storytellers arrived
All female they
The space transformed
by chairs being pushed
stairs swept
pillows arranged
Enraptured I
(Though Khaled’s heard these grandmother-tales before.)
And I left with them, the storytellers
In the servees.
The high schooler
Who travels for three hours
What should take twenty minutes
To prepare at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
She asked about swimming and
I said
The sea is too salty
Forgetting not everyone can see the sea
And taste its salt
(American passport)
--
And now it’s summer
I came back
Shaytan’s (Queen Anne’s) lace in bloom.
I will eat
mulberry (tuut)
with you,
and the taxi driver,
still green.
All female they
The space transformed
by chairs being pushed
stairs swept
pillows arranged
Enraptured I
(Though Khaled’s heard these grandmother-tales before.)
And I left with them, the storytellers
In the servees.
The high schooler
Who travels for three hours
What should take twenty minutes
To prepare at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
She asked about swimming and
I said
The sea is too salty
Forgetting not everyone can see the sea
And taste its salt
(American passport)
--
And now it’s summer
I came back
Shaytan’s (Queen Anne’s) lace in bloom.
I will eat
mulberry (tuut)
with you,
and the taxi driver,
still green.
Queen Alia Airport, June 2019
