Showing posts with label Naomi Shihab Nye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Naomi Shihab Nye. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2024

red brocade







The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he's come from,
where he's headed.
That way, he'll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you'll be
such good friends
you don't care.

Let's go back to that.
Rice?  Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That's the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.




~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 Varieties of Gazelle



Tuesday, February 20, 2024

in morning

 







The Palestinian child
does not think about being Palestinian,
but only of how his kitten
slept last night
and why is it not
in its basket.
Before he walks to school,
he will find it playing
with neighbor kittens
outside his house
and make sure it has breakfast.

The Ukrainian child
checks her doll
in its crib
which is really a box
shoes once lived in
and tucks
the blanket
which is really a napkin
tighter.

The Libyan child
thought he lived in a desert,
so how could his house wash away,
the Moroccan child
never dreamed a building so old
with such fat walls
could fall,
the child of Maui
never wears socks
but someone has given him
socks.
He misses
his old messy room
which he would clean up right now
if he still had it.

Each morning
we put ourselves together.
Try to imagine
what we will do,
gathering things,
thoughts,
mysteries
no one explains.
Scary things
feel farther away
in morning.
We try not to worry.

Wash face
brush teeth,
be as good as possible
because the stones
lined up
by the grandfathers
are still somewhere
and the wind from the west
is still your friend
and the little gray bird
pecking at a crumb
said something
we almost understood.



~ Naomi Shihab Nye
with thanks to Ruth at 


Friday, April 14, 2023

come with me

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Come with me
To the quiet minute
Between two noisy minutes
It's always waiting to welcome us
Tucked away under the wing of the day
I'll be there
Where will you be?
 
 .
 
 
 ~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from Everything Comes Next: 
Collected and New Poems
 
 
  

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

shoulders








A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.


No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.


This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.


His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.


We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.


The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.




~ Naomi Shihab Nye
 from Red Suitcase




Sunday, June 5, 2022

supple cord










My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end.
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,
we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,
gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.
When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath
and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.
 
 
 
 
 
 ~ Naimi Shihab Nye
from A MAZE ME


where hate won't grow





 
 
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.
 
 
 
 
 
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
(19 Varieties of Gazelle)
photo by  imso gabriel
 
 

Thursday, April 7, 2022

kindness





Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be 
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crown of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.




~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
 


Tuesday, April 13, 2021

so much




.
 
 
 
 
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
 
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
And disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
And love even the floor which needs to be swept,
The soiled linens and scratched records….
 
Since there is no place large enough 
To contain so much happiness,
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,
And in that way, be known.






.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

kindness

 
 
 

 
 
 
~ Naomi Shihab Nye 
 
 
 
 

Thursday, January 7, 2021

the art of disappearing

 
 
 

 


When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone is telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.
 
 
 
 
Naomi Shihab Nye
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

what to do

 



 

It's difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. 
With sadness, there's something to rub against.
 A wound to tend with lotion and cloth. 
When the world falls in around you,
 you have pieces to pick up something to hold
 in your hands like ticket stubs or change.
 
 But happiness floats. 
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
 Doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house singing
 and disappears when it wants to. 
You're happy either way. 
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful treehouse
 and now live over a quarry of noise and dust 
cannot make you unhappy. 
 
Everything has a life of its own.
 It, too, could wake up filled with possibilities of coffee cake
 and ripe peaches and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
 the soiled linens,and scratched records.Since there's no place large enough
 to contain so much happiness, you shrug, you raise your hands, 
and it flows out of you into everything you touch. 
 
You're not responsible.
 You take no credit.
 
 As the night sky takes no credit for the moon, 
but continues to hold it and to share it 
and in that way, be known.




Naomi Shihab Nye
photo - children of Papua New Guinea





Saturday, May 30, 2020

haunted





We are looking for your laugh.
Trying to find the path back to it
between drooping trees.
Listening for your rustle
under bamboo,
brush of fig leaves,
feeling your step
on the porch,
natty lantana blossom
poked into your buttonhole.
We see your raised face
at both sides of a day.
How was it, you lived around
the edge of everything we did,
seasons of ailing; growing,
mountains of laundry; mail?
I am looking for you first; last
in the dark places,
when I turn my face away
from headlines at dawn,
dropping the rolled news to the floor.
Your rumble of calm
poured into me.
There was the saving grace
of care, from day one, the watching
and being watched
from every corner of the yard.





~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from Transfer





Thursday, March 8, 2012

arabic coffee








~ Naomi Shihab Nye




Friday, August 5, 2011

Naomi Shihab Nye






.


.


Monday, May 16, 2011

they dropped it




.
A gardener appeared, waving his toothy rake.
Children with yellow bells in their hands
jumped the fence, snagging uniforms.
One boy trailed a purple vine.

They wouldn't be sorry,
pockets reeking jasmine,
mud staining shoes...
Who deserved flowers more?
Rich people who never came outside
or children stuck all day in school?

The sweaty gardener cursed them,
straightening branches.

Someone else lifted one large pink blossom
from the pavement beyond the fence,
found a scrap of tissue to wrap it in,
carried it home across the sea.

The dried petals lay on a table for months
whispering, Where are we?




~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 Varieties of Gazelle



Sunday, May 15, 2011

an apple





.
An apple on the table
hides its seeds
so neatly
under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.



~ Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 Varieties of Gazelle