Homesick, Paris Poet Society style
Paris Poet society member Sherry Scott loves Naomi Shihab Nye
and thought of her when I started with Alice Walker- they are personal friends and are
activists on some of the same issues. She is a Palestinean-American who resides
in San Antonio, where Sherry first met her. She is a very accomplished poet who has
written or edited 30 books and has been a recipient of many awards and several
fellowships. She is an integral part of the poetry festival that happens at
Festival Hill in Roundtop, Texas every spring. This poem is taken from her book
Transfer, published in 2011; the book
was written in memory of her father.
Aziz
Our father
Our father
who
was always our father
not always
our father
Refugee
not always
once a
confident schoolboy
strolling
Jerusalem streets
He
knew the alleyways
spoke to stones
All
his life he would pick up stones
and pocket them
On some he drew
faces
What do we say in the wake of one
who was always homesick?
Are you home now?
Is Palestine
peaceful in some dimension
we can't see?
Do Jews and Arabs share the table?
Do Jews and Arabs share the table?
Is holy in the middle?
Note from Syd: I am dedicating most of my posts to Poetry this month.
To see why read: February, Paris Poet Society Style
More such posts: Hands, Paris Poet Society Style
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