Editor’s note: Amidst all the mischief, merriment and mirth, at Tweetspeak Poetry we’re in the business of becoming, and of helping people become who they really are. We pay attention, and sometimes we pick up on cues that tell us where a person might be dreaming to go. And sometimes when that happens, we issue a Poetry Dare. Recently, we challenged Sandra Heska King to a Follow Your Dream Dare. She continues her journey today.
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The poet Mahmoud Darwish believed there needed to be a time gap between an event and the writing about it. My thoughts about this latest dare are like “cotton ginned by the wind.” Maybe I need a wider gap.
I’ve sat most of this past week in “A State of Siege, ” a long text found in The Butterfly’s Burden in which Darwish gave voice to the Israeli siege of Ramallah, his home (but not his home) in 2002, the year my oldest granddaughter was born. He called it, “a poet’s journal that deals with resisting the occupation through searching for beauty in poetics and beauty in nature. It was a way of resisting military violence through poetry. The victory of the permanent, the everlasting, the eternal, over the siege and the violence.”
Here, by the downslope of hills, facing the sunset
and time’s muzzle,
near gardens with severed shadows,
we do what the prisoners do,
and what the unemployed do;
we nurture hope.
Last night I glanced across the field toward my daughter’s house to see if her lights were on. It’s still my habit, even though for almost four months the house has existed only as a burned-out, soot-filled shell, the insides an eerie nether world where time stands still. My throat catches every time, like choking on a whole orange, when I remember the billowing smoke and flames that exploded through the window like a bomb. I feel my leaden feet as I tried to run toward it, making slow forward progress, like in a dream, not knowing if my family had escaped. It was a hidden enemy, lurking behind the walls, that displaced my daughter. I’ve never asked if she saw the sunrise that morning from her deck. We wonder if she’ll see the sun rise from that vantage point again.
Life.
Life in its entirety,
Life with its shortcomings,
Hosts neighboring stars
That are timeless …
And immigrant clouds
That are placeless.
And life here wonders:
How do we bring it back to life!
A three-year old Kurdish boy washed up on a Turkish beach last week after his family attempted to flee the violence of his home and start a new life. Only his father survived. He said, “Everything I was dreaming of is gone. I want to sit beside my children until I die.”
My lord … my lord! Why have you forsaken me
While I’m still a child … and you haven’t tested me yet?
Raging fires drive families from their homes. A tropical storm ravages a tiny island. The world can’t keep up with the migrant and refugee exodus. Journalists are ambushed on a light assignment; another school is on lockdown. I have no idea what it’s like to live in a war zone, though there’s a sniper shooting at cars on the highway my husband drives. I find myself searching for an exit or place of refuge when I’m in public. Some days I think the whole world’s gone violent, and I’ve grown cold. I shake my head and make homemade granola while others weep.
We store our sorrows in our jars, lest
the soldiers see them and celebrate the siege …
We store them for other seasons,
for a memory,
for something that might surprise us on the road.
But when life becomes normal
we’ll grieve like others over personal matters
that bigger headlines had kept hidden,
when we didn’t notice the hemorrhage of small wounds in us.
Tomorrow when the place heals
we’ll feel its side effects.
I make myself a another cup of coffee and carry it out to the yard. The trees are starting to change, but my boomerang lilac is blooming one last time. The soybeans are about ready for harvest, and my doctor just called to tell me the results of my biopsy were normal. Somewhere, someone just got the call that theirs wasn’t.
Our coffee cups. And birds. And the green trees
with blue shadows. And the sun leaping from
one wall to another like a gazelle …
and the water in clouds with endless shapes
in what is left to us of sky,
and other things of postponed memory
indicate this morning is strong and beautiful,
and that we are eternity’s guests.
I’m pretty sure I’d never have read Mahmoud Darwish had I not been dared. But living with his words has been like lying on warm sand and letting waves wash over me, like watching the endless-shaping clouds float over my head, like inhaling the scent of lilacs in the fall. One thing he’s taught me is that we are all the same in so many ways, that we are two in one, that…
“Me or him”
that’s how war starts. But
it ends in an awkward stance:
“Me and him.”
Photo by Kristof Magyar, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Sandra Heska King.
Read the first dispatch from Sandra’s Darwish Poetry Dare
Browse other Poetry Dare adventures
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Could you use a little dreamy inspiration? Join Sandra in this Poetry Dare. Read a little Darwish each day and share your own dream poems in the comments.
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Donna says
I am without words, Sandra, just feeling all of the power here. Thank you thank you.
This is so good and right and strong.
Sandra Heska King says
I’m kind of overwhelmed here, Donna. I had planned a totally different approach, and this is what happened. I had no idea… Thank you.
You’re reading him, right?
Donna Z Falcone says
I am not reading him as much as I had planned. I keep forgetting that I have the book. Ugh. However, today it goes with me on an appointment where a waiting room is involved. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Hmmm… seems a waiting room is a good place to read him… “I’ll teach you waiting…”
Donna Z Falcone says
Oh definitely… the perfect place. As you know, my muse now has a mad crush on Mohmoud Darwish. She’s probably doodling his name blended with hers all over her notebook or something. And so… his poetry seems to make me paint, as you may have figured out. I’m just not sure what to make of all this, but it’s very heart-opening.
Sandra Heska King says
Like I said, your muse and my muse may have some words or dare each other to a duel… but I guess they can learn to share. I’m in love with him, too.
L. L. Barkat says
This dare has changed you, and your writing. I’m so glad you encountered Darwish.
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, wow. I do feel something shifting. I hope I can hang on.
Megan Willome says
This is stunning, Sandy.
I liked your line, “I shake my head and make homemade granola while others weep.” It made me think of Patty Griffin’s song “Making Pies,” which includes the line, “You could cry. Or die. Or just make pies all day. I’m making pies.”
Sandra Heska King says
I don’t know that song. I’m off to find it. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, wow…
Maureen says
This is a lovely piece, Sandra, striking in its interweaving of the personal and the global and how one poet’s words can change everything.
So many will never read Mahmoud Darwish, will never know who he was. I’m so pleased you are not among them anymore.
Sandra Heska King says
I’m so grateful for your encouragement, Maureen, and how you push me into new places. I hope others will get to know Darwish a little now, too. Did I tell you I also ordered In the Presence of Absence while I was waiting for The Butterfly’s Burden? I didn’t get very far before BB arrived. I’m looking forward to going back to finish it.
Maureen says
I also like Darwish’s collection ‘Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?’
Sandra Heska King says
Thank you, Maureen. I’ll look for that one, too.
Simply Darlene says
Oh, Sandra – so much of what’s happening ’round the world are nightmares stacked one atop another, but you titled this piece “Dreaming…” The connection, the hope, the humanity, the reality, and the ordinary beauty in the midst of it all – you not only captured, but shared it real.
This is one of my favorite pieces.
Sandra Heska King says
It’s true, isn’t it, Miss Darlene… we’re all living in a land of layered nightmares–from world to personal level, and there’s so much pain and loss. And yet Darwish shows us there is still beauty, and we can still hope, and we can still dream.
I was not anticipating this response. I’m a tad weepy…
Jody Lee Collins says
It’s hard to wrap words around a world that is filled with so much violence near and far, and frankly I’d rather run away, too, than face it, participate in it.
Fighting back with your own words, inspired by Darwish, is remarkably powerful. You brought me to tears.
I’m so grateful to the Tweespeak folks for unearthing rarely-heard-of poets and bringing their work to light. I look forward to what you will write next, friend; this was just beautiful.
(And Hallelujah for that biopsy report. Hallelujah.)
Sandra Heska King says
I read that Darwish once thought poetry could change the world, could change… things. He said, “. . . but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.” I don’t know if that’s necessarily so. I think poetry is changing me. Surely if more people read and engage with poetry, maybe some things really can change?
And yes, hallelujah. On to the next crisis. 😉
Donna Z Falcone says
Oh wow. Poetry changes the poet. Holy Toledo, you are on fire, Sandra. Oh, and that sounds like a wordcandy, if you ask me, which no one did but there it is anyway.
Donna Z Falcone says
Well, okay, I was confused about who said it first… but it’s still brilliant and delicious.
Sandra Heska King says
😀 😀
Will Willingham says
A striking piece, with such clarity.
I agree with the others. Your time with Darwish, and just putting yourself to the process of the dare, has been good. 🙂 And I’m with Maureen. I like very much the way you have woven what is personal to you and to Darwish with what is global, what is long past and what is current.
Sandra Heska King says
I appreciate the discipline a dare gives me. Otherwise, I might taste and move on without really chewing and swallowing. 😉
Matthew Kreider says
Your words point to the gift: poetry is sky for hearts under siege — and home for “immigrant clouds / That are placeless.”
Such a beautiful post. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Your words are a gift, Matthew.
Charity Singleton Craig says
Sandy – Your work here is exquisite. I think you are not only writing differently but seeing differently. Darwish has given you new eyes, perhaps. Your example here makes me want to give myself a dare, to read where I otherwise would not. Thanks for taking the leap.
Sandra Heska King says
Thanks so much, Charity. (I’m sorry I missed this comment earlier.)
Dear Dare Editor… did you read this? 😉