Flowers are blooming
earlier each year, while seas
are on the rise.
Writers are busy building
their online portfolios.
Readers cherish
their own truths, enjoy
new communities.
Belonging is now a digital right.
Poets surf horizons
and navigate wounds.
They burn verses
to warm the night.
I listen to the East and grow uneasy.
A bitter sadness overtakes me.
The wide dark eyes of Eastern women
become both home and exile.
I dig into the past, a time when we held
our struggles tightly and rose to them.
Then shepherds carried bread and flutes,
literature exposed empty promises,
and idealists were the only warriors.
For migrating birds, nostalgia is a refuge.
I choose hope and listen to music
along forgotten roads.
I dream of reinventing myself, befriending
lovers, and sunbathing in secluded backyards.
I think of neighborhoods in cities
where the sun rises out of duty and boredom.
Of dusted streets and deserted schools
named after kings in rural areas.
The more pretentious a place’s name,
the more it resembles a dump.
Names try hard to make up the gap.
to mask reality, to project lofty claims.
Like journal entries of unfulfilled desires,
or promotions of unhealthy diets.
Examine a name long enough, meaning appears.
Sometimes a name craves things to improve.
What does it mean to be violently displaced– roots cut?
To become nameless; faceless as you blend into a sea of faces
around you. What does it mean when home is no longer safe?
That your savings vanished, your job disappeared,
house flattened, families killed? What does it mean
to walk a thousand miles, cross borders, seek refuge?
Memories fade as you struggle to stay alive in the dark.
Packed into camps, living under tents.
Indefinitely postponing your medical needs.
No calls to make, no emails to send.
No papers to read, no news to watch.
You are the headline; the show others are watching.
What does it mean to survive war? To be denied entry?
Refused , turned down, and rejected once more at borders?
I hope to never know. I cannot even ask.
Customs at the borders, bureaucrats in consulates,
and elites in parliaments won’t let you in;
a few citizens even protested.
If you are angry, I understand. If you hate me, I understand.
I watched the movie and I did not recognize you.
Your name was in the credits, though. I checked.
“Yes, Mom, the makeup artist is a genius.”
You did not make it to the cover of Vogue.
They put up another woman, younger
with sexy, hungry eyes,
like those of a wild wolf looking for a mate
in the middle of the night,
or an English princess forced into celibacy.
“That’s me, Mom; it is just a different angle,
dim lighting, and a few brushes of Photoshop.”
I drove a long way in a narrow road,
passed abandoned gas stations,
and houses half-standing,
like sunflowers kneeling at sunset.
As I braced the road ahead,
the dry land kept closing in.
Then a flag appeared flying high
that a proud, young woman had
planted years before as a reminder
we are in the land of the free.
We were not destined to toast beneath the moon —
pure and high at night, emitting light.
It makes the curves of lovers glow,
their naked bodies grow, from midnight to noon
against the sands of a faraway desert. A playful sight:
laughter and concert, light and shadow.
Our future
is our only option.
Butterflies precede us,
rejoice
in a forthcoming
spring.
When you fly, you make the sky happy.
You delight us with your songs.
When you land, you grant the earth a new perspective.
You keep us company, reflecting on where we come from.
When you dive, the water can be cold,
and the depths are unfamiliar.
Your dives give you strength
and leave us wondering
about the secrets beneath the sea.
Alongside ghosts
I walk the alley of murder.
On the magazine cover my friend was dead.
But I will deny the killers his burial.
I will walk with him
across the bridge of light and feel
the warmth of our tears
escaping our exhausted eyelids.
Our trees will shade their walls
and our rivers will clean their hands.
I will celebrate
his birth and plant his
favorite orchids.
I’ll celebrate twice:
his birth and his death.
As I grieve, the rivers mourn the shooting stars
and the trees drop their leaves.