It is cold here
wet
winter is here
almost
and we are almost
home
those of us who call New York home
can hardly wait
two weeks
to be in our own beds
hotels are simply not my thing
Scott Peterson
found guilty of murdering his wife
his child not yet
arrived
and Arafat is laid to toss about
under
ground he did not wish to be buried by
Something is wrong
when the leaders of societies not supported by Bush
is treated without dignity
I hate Saddam
but he was still the leader of the Iraqi people
who deserved more than such scant respect
that white
gloved hand in the mouth of a people
looking for lice
vermin
these brutes who chart the angry fate
of the disenfranchised
how this present American administration
resembles the structure is remains committed to tearing down
how the people of the Middle East
are portrayed without dignity
everyday
today
at Yasser's final homecoming
I saw a nation
struggling for symbol
I heard CNN
refer to their grief
as mob
their outpouring
as frenzy
I saw a multitude
reaching for itself
in memory of a time when their lives
were theirs to laugh
or sing
or sit in the sun at noon
pray
watch the small children to play on ground
not landscaped by war
and all I am hearing is the question of who will rise
to protect Iraeli lives
still under threat
no talk of the nation taken
the dark curls of lives stolen
thirty seven years
of occupation
this brutal inhabiting of a body
this struggle is older than my battle with my own body
aging
time passing and no talk of returning home
for refugees
and children of refugees
sitting in a French Bistro in Dupont Circle
Lebanon
Brooklyn
Jordan
Martinique
Beautiful women with music in their names
born Palestinian
born Black
we laughed and I finally ate french fries I liked
good wine
and loud laughter
and hope
tongues looped languid round the stories
of belonging
and the poetry
this existence is nothing
if not poetry
our lives
long splintering haikus
and verses
broken indiscernible lines
lineage
with dates missing from the women
tell them to me
your stories
this
is what I have always
wanted from you
the cracked edge
of what has just begun to harden
we must
if nothing else
tell our stories
for when the smoke
clears
and it will
for it always has
the children
then adults will be reading them
nothing is more important
than the tales we mark illegal on these oppressive walls
the caves will be here
long after the rats in New York City are dead
the stories will
stand witness to what really happened
after the rock and rubble and rhetoric
right will prevail
but we must in this era do our part
so the voices yet to come
will have more than a legacy
of memory
to measure what truths
they will hold as history
in the spirit
of things not silenced
Staceyann