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NIDA KHOURI
PEOPLE OF FIRE
Burn generations,
burn the olive leaves
raise incense,
Burn their fingertips.
Smoke.
Burn their farewells
and go.
Burn their cook books
burn the kindling
infuse their wheat
and scatter it
on the rooftops.
They burn the candle’s end
illuminate the shame of graves.
Dress in ashes and lie down like coals.
PEOPLE OF GRAPES
The unripe grapes
hang on the morning gate
and the leaving.
My soul goes out
to the unripe taste of my childhood
but the sun
grabs me quickly
and hides
my shadow
in her shade
...and my story ends.
PEOPLE OF POMEGRANATES
Roll within themselves
seeds of love and liberty
from the dawn of time.
And now they break up
in the mother’s hips
into wedges wedges
and she bursts
this is the land
narrow of womb
the place erupts.
PEOPLE OF FIGS
In the land of milk and honey
whenever they pick unripe dates
and children in their dawn
the pain dries
like curdled milk
rivers in my land will drip
the land of milk and honey
PEOPLE OF OLIVES
They come and are pressed
like those impressed with a Mission.
Thus thought the crushed:
In the crushing is most of the oil.
Our oil has been sold, like our blood
to the holy places
for we are poor
our land is holy
and our palace in the Mount of Olives.
TRANLSATED FROM THE HEBREW TRANSLATION
BY KAREN ALKALAY-GUT