We sipped our coffee and pondered the survived beauty of the city beneath us. Frank's foot rose above venturing ants, hovered undecided on their fate, though he had not begun to consider the implication of ending what he failed yet to recognize as a life. Sa'ed scolded him with the authority of an abrupt poet, the consequences crystalized in that instant. But the poet's voice, halted, could not belie the tenderness of its source.
Memory can scald, inwardly collapsing worlds that condense to unbearable weights bound impossibly within. Legacies are felt with hands, seen on the softened faces caressed by the individual who embodies them. They are carried by the collective, flags relieved in favor of what she gave a generation of sons.
'God willing' is not an expression of doubt, but the sounding of a promise we are being looked after. It is faith, not merely hope, that we will meet on this holy path again, to walk a few more steps together in a changed tomorrow.
-In loving memory of Shaden Abu Hijleh
killed October 11, 2002
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Olive Harvest
Hello! Hello!
Ya Haramiyye!
Allah hu Akbar!
A worn man rises swiftly from a recliner, its muted fabric dusted and torn in the dirt and soil shade of olive trees still alive amidst the discards of this broken city, a remnant orchard boxed in a Rockefeller project.
He’s upon the two women in an instant, pulling at the synthetic burlap of a bag not even half empty. Her old hands are impossibly strong. This woman banished, ventured from the camp. Her hands are rough, as rough as his. Such calluses never relinquish their utility.
He pulls with insistence,
but not violence, his anger tempered by her desperation. His case booms, right but not righteous, not framed within rules worth following. It’s a reverse mugging in Central Park East, after the sun has fallen to earth and burned our homes and skin, everything but the biblical, symbols of hope and promise.
He takes care not to offend this thief. His hands maneuver deftly around her staid grasp. He never touches her, not once, decorum beguiling, colors of our compassionate nature painting the summer faded.
They wind down. He sits and smokes. They sit and listen. In the refuge of stolen provision, his appeals steadily lose bite, a man drowned whose nervous impulses force desultory relent. Kick, spasm and twitch last appeals to the onlookers.
It’s over. He collapsed, defeated and redeemed in his recliner. They, with his scant harvest, up the slope and back to exile.
In returned silence, the police drive slowly past, obligated if not curious. They do not stop.
Ya Haramiyye!
Allah hu Akbar!
A worn man rises swiftly from a recliner, its muted fabric dusted and torn in the dirt and soil shade of olive trees still alive amidst the discards of this broken city, a remnant orchard boxed in a Rockefeller project.
He’s upon the two women in an instant, pulling at the synthetic burlap of a bag not even half empty. Her old hands are impossibly strong. This woman banished, ventured from the camp. Her hands are rough, as rough as his. Such calluses never relinquish their utility.
He pulls with insistence,
but not violence, his anger tempered by her desperation. His case booms, right but not righteous, not framed within rules worth following. It’s a reverse mugging in Central Park East, after the sun has fallen to earth and burned our homes and skin, everything but the biblical, symbols of hope and promise.
He takes care not to offend this thief. His hands maneuver deftly around her staid grasp. He never touches her, not once, decorum beguiling, colors of our compassionate nature painting the summer faded.
They wind down. He sits and smokes. They sit and listen. In the refuge of stolen provision, his appeals steadily lose bite, a man drowned whose nervous impulses force desultory relent. Kick, spasm and twitch last appeals to the onlookers.
It’s over. He collapsed, defeated and redeemed in his recliner. They, with his scant harvest, up the slope and back to exile.
In returned silence, the police drive slowly past, obligated if not curious. They do not stop.
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