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

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 

 https://thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

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

 

 

  

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

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

 

 

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
 

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

.

kindness

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Naomi Shihab Nye 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

arabic coffee

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye

.

.

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

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

photo by kathleen connally