It’s too easy to say – oh, that was long ago.  

I met Naim when I was asked to join a bunch of poets going up north to read poetry.  I brought a few poems with me, but didn’t think Id be asked to read.  And there was the new professor Naim introducing the readers with a long speech about co-existence and I had no idea this was the topic for the evening.  So I sat there sweating and when it was my turn, read a very personal poem about the gulf war.

XVI

CUSTOM

Tonight we wait for the alarm.

Who wants to get caught in the shower

or the toilet or in the middle of love?

You say, “I’ll wash my hair after

the attack,” and I decide to put off

lacquering my nails, read

short poems about decadence instead

into the night.  And it doesn’t come ‑

And we take off our shoes and lie down

fully clothed, alert, prepared

for the sudden race to the shelter.

Even towards morning while the radio clock

shines out 3 and 4, illuminating

the passing minutes, we wait,

remembering the shock of the 7:00 a.m. surprise.

Although I try to weary us with chapters from Jeremiah,

“I need my nightly missile,” you say, “to fall asleep.”

Except for a properly covered school girl, I was the only woman in the room, and I was sure rhe audience would cough and move onto the next poem.  But Naim guided a long discussion about how much the personal and private was linked to the subject of coexistence.  

That began a long and delicate friendship in which we could relate as souls but not as intimate friends.  We translated each others’ poems and appeared together in the Kennedy Center and other places.  

Until he was sent to Norway as cultural attache.