“Take them, use them, I beg you to travel.”
—Samih al-Qasim, from “Travel Tickets”
To live with what we are given—
graciously, as if our windows open wide as our neighbors’, as if there weren’t insult at every turn.
How did you do that?
“. . . if social justice will be victorious in all the world . . . I don’t care who will remember me or my poems.”
You sprang from the earth same way everyone does,
from the soil of your parents, the small bed and hopeful song.
Were pressed along through a century
that didn’t honor your people,
who washed their faces anyway,
stitched the dresses, buttoned shirts.
“. . . travel tickets . . . one to peace . . .
one to the fields and the rain, and one to the
conscience of humankind . . .”
How did you survive so much hurt and remain gracious,
finding words to mark the shapes
of grief, how did you believe,
then and forever, breaking out
of the endless worry cocoon,
something better might come your people’s way?
