A Day in the Life of Nablus
Summer: The figs are bruise pink,
tomatoes luscious enough
to stop a hurried man.
Ignore the flies.
At 9 a.m. peasants savor shish-kebab
in puny, vaulted eateries
Ah, the roasting coffee's aroma,
the folklore of each of the senses.
Everything here is for sale:
children's toys, kitchen utensils,
bananas, peanuts, pine nuts, posters,
cassettes, straw mats, sponge mats, watches,
Elvis's T-shirts, turkey breasts, shoes.
The vendor in disheveled clothes
arranges a feast of pears,
lifts one with pride
as he might his own child.
He bellows in to the air:
"Go to sleep with a sweet mouth."
He sees the soldiers.
He does not brood over power or history.
No curfew
during our five week stay.
Walkin on University Boulevard,
I spot soldiers manning a checkpoint:
the school has been ordered shut.
And, as if in the recurring dream,
I frisk myself for my passport
but find my pockets empty.
I go past the black machine guns
thinking how as a boy
I caught black wasps
and removed their stingers.
A few yards away from the checkpoint
I read a sign:
Office of Reconciliation.
Inside, a Samaritan rabbi
clad in brown caftan and red turban
is ensconced on a couch, waiting,
resigned to waiting.
On an immaculate wall
of a friend's living room
hangs a picture in a gilded frame:
a woman squatting amidst the rubble
of her house demolished by the army,
cheek cupped in hand,
peering in to a white, empty bucket.
In cafes men congregate in the afternoons,
slowly sip their tea
(as if time were their own),
shuffle cards, spur the backgammon dice
(as if chance were their own).
They listen to songs
of unrequited love, broken promises, partings.
When the sun sinks behind the hills
they saulte the fading day, irreconciled,
leaving the folded market
to the screech of armored cars.
The sky flowers tonight.
The stars are as bright and real
as children's eyes
as the faces of women loved
after years of waiting,
A meteor dives like a deft acrobat.
A satellite sails west to east, unperturbed.
Russian or American?
Scientist or spy? Or
a station where voices
of distant lovers dovetail?
In gowns of soft lights
the town performs the ritual of sleep.
Will the caress the mouth of the vendor,
and the silence of the woman who lost her house?
The settlement, fortress on the mountain peak,
and the jail on the hilltop
flood their sleep with yellow lights.
I want the kind breeze
the power of pears
the sound of the flute,
melodious and sad,
like the hills of this land,
to grant us all,
vendors and soldiers,
frant us ample love
that we may turn this trouble page
that we may sleep with a sweet mouth.
tomatoes luscious enough
to stop a hurried man.
Ignore the flies.
At 9 a.m. peasants savor shish-kebab
in puny, vaulted eateries
Ah, the roasting coffee's aroma,
the folklore of each of the senses.
Everything here is for sale:
children's toys, kitchen utensils,
bananas, peanuts, pine nuts, posters,
cassettes, straw mats, sponge mats, watches,
Elvis's T-shirts, turkey breasts, shoes.
The vendor in disheveled clothes
arranges a feast of pears,
lifts one with pride
as he might his own child.
He bellows in to the air:
"Go to sleep with a sweet mouth."
He sees the soldiers.
He does not brood over power or history.
No curfew
during our five week stay.
Walkin on University Boulevard,
I spot soldiers manning a checkpoint:
the school has been ordered shut.
And, as if in the recurring dream,
I frisk myself for my passport
but find my pockets empty.
I go past the black machine guns
thinking how as a boy
I caught black wasps
and removed their stingers.
A few yards away from the checkpoint
I read a sign:
Office of Reconciliation.
Inside, a Samaritan rabbi
clad in brown caftan and red turban
is ensconced on a couch, waiting,
resigned to waiting.
On an immaculate wall
of a friend's living room
hangs a picture in a gilded frame:
a woman squatting amidst the rubble
of her house demolished by the army,
cheek cupped in hand,
peering in to a white, empty bucket.
In cafes men congregate in the afternoons,
slowly sip their tea
(as if time were their own),
shuffle cards, spur the backgammon dice
(as if chance were their own).
They listen to songs
of unrequited love, broken promises, partings.
When the sun sinks behind the hills
they saulte the fading day, irreconciled,
leaving the folded market
to the screech of armored cars.
The sky flowers tonight.
The stars are as bright and real
as children's eyes
as the faces of women loved
after years of waiting,
A meteor dives like a deft acrobat.
A satellite sails west to east, unperturbed.
Russian or American?
Scientist or spy? Or
a station where voices
of distant lovers dovetail?
In gowns of soft lights
the town performs the ritual of sleep.
Will the caress the mouth of the vendor,
and the silence of the woman who lost her house?
The settlement, fortress on the mountain peak,
and the jail on the hilltop
flood their sleep with yellow lights.
I want the kind breeze
the power of pears
the sound of the flute,
melodious and sad,
like the hills of this land,
to grant us all,
vendors and soldiers,
frant us ample love
that we may turn this trouble page
that we may sleep with a sweet mouth.