we were Palestinian in every timeline

Art by Kristina Closs

from UNIVERSAL THEORY IN WHICH EVERY FAILED GESTURE 
TOWARDS LOVE IS A SOULMATE FROM AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE

by George Abraham

Let’s say god is every failed history of speculation – say history 
is the space between two lovers endlessly out of reach –  

we feigned divinity & it got us this far – this is how I know 
we were Palestinian in every timeline – ancestored from earth 

to earth, our infinite loops of breath are how the universe loves itself 
back, perpetual – proof that every love language boils down 

to recursion – the only country I can surely Return to is a people
who sent the timelines spiraling with their stubborn & earth

-laced fists. None of this is speculative – there are people inside 
the people we were born into & all of them survived 

so many unspeakables. In this life, we will cry over foaming
qahwa as you tell me only one of us can Return to the country

we call home, before distancing ourselves a plane ride we’ll never 
take. You tell me all will be well. Say, we know the shattering of space

-time’s topology as inheritance; in this way, we’re chasing 
each other     though neither of us are chasing     back – 

__

for more of George’s poems, check out Birthright

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The air smelled of burning clementine groves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Hijra, by the Palestinian American poet, author, and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan (1986-).

“Seham”

Sit and I’ll tell you of my father’s prayer rug,
dark as plums with yellow borders,

borders like the map we ate, grit tangled
between our teeth, the years swelling

like one hundred arrows. Here,
have some stew, taste June in the steam.

Did I tell you about the name we bore
like armor, the earth they spat up

with fishbone? After they planted copper
in our eyes, we went on planting suns over

the graves. The air smelled of
burning clementine groves. We fed

our daughters until they grew
redwoods and oak trees instead of hearts,

the fever we took from the land when
our ribs turned into compasses.

Each carries a tender spot: something our lives forgot to give us.

“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”
–Bertolt Brecht  

Dear readers,

Welcome to my ninth round of daily postings for National Poetry Month. This past year, when I found myself overwhelmed, heartbroken, and angered by the state of the world and the state of this country, I once again turned to poetry. It was verse that helped lift me out of the quicksand of scrolling through endless polemics and social media posts. In stanza after stanza, I remembered the enormous struggles of humankind not just now and here but everywhere and across history. In line after line, I rediscovered what is worth celebrating and fighting for in our lives. In word after word, I fell back in love with language.

Let us begin this month with one of my touchstones: the Palestinian-American writer, Naomi Shihab Nye (1952-). Let us remember the tender spots we carry in our brains and our bodies and our lives. And let us read poetry, together.

“Jerusalem”

“Let’s be the same wound if we must bleed.
Let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy
is ourselves: I am yours, you are mine.”
—Tommy Olofsson, Sweden

I’m not interested in
who suffered the most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
a stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddle: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Later his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot:
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
“I am native now.”
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child’s poem says,
“I don’t like wars,
they end up with monuments.”
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.
If you tilt your head just slightly
it’s ridiculous.

There’s a place in my brain
where hate won’t grow.
I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.

It’s late but everything comes next.