Hand Watches
I opened the drawer
where I keep old things and tokens…
I looked over some hand watches
with dead batteries and frozen times…
Watches gifted to me over the years
by teachers or friends
commending my accomplishments and respect for time…
It never occurred to them nor to me then
that Time would die in a heart attack
and cease to matter
the day my homeland was occupied and destroyed…
The day plunderers, in collaboration with thieves at home,
would burn and destroy everything beautiful…
And ever since, I refuse to wear hand watches…
I vowed not to wear a hand watch
until my people retrieve their Time and dignity…
And when that happens, Time will not matter
for I will then turn into a butterfly
a sparrow
a daffodil
an orange
Or perhaps an apricot blossom on a branch…
I will turn into a spring of water
flowing beyond time and timing …
In that same drawer I found
pens that have run out of ink
looking now like mummified corpses…
At a moment of despair,
A strong feeling struck me like a lightning
leaving me with a frightening question:
What if this is a wound no time can heal,
a cause that no ink can revive?
Straw
I still keep the last straw I picked
from the harvested wheat field near my home
before the war forced me out…
I have the straw framed
and take it with me everywhere I go…
And when asked about it, I tell people:
It is the straw that broke my back…
A Sweet Woman from a War-Torn Country
In her exile, they often describe her
as that “sweet woman from a war-torn country” …
They don’t know that she loved smelling roses …
That she enjoyed picking spring wildflowers
and bringing them home after long walks…
They don’t know about that first kiss her first lover stole from her
during a power outage at church on that Easter evening
Before the generators were turned on…
They don’t know anything about the long hours
she spent contemplating life
under the ancient walnut tree in her village,
while waiting for her grandfather to call her
to eat her favorite freshly baked pita bread with ghee and honey…
They don’t know anything about her grandmother’s delicious mixed grains
that she prepared every year before Easter fasting began…
In exile, they try to be nice to her…
They keep repeating that she is now in a “safe haven”…
They attribute her silence is either to her poor language skills,
or perhaps because she agrees with them…
They don’t know that the shocks of life have silenced her forever…
All she enjoys doing now is pressing her ears
against the cold window glass in her apartment
listening to the wailing wind outside …
They repeatedly remind her that she is now in a place
where all values, beliefs, religions, and ethnicities are honored,
but life has taught her that all of that is too late…
She no longer needs any of that…
All she needs, occasionally,
is a sincere hand to be placed on her shoulder
or around her neck
To remind her that nothing lasts
That this too shall pass…
