Vox Populi
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Naomi Shihab Nye: A Palestinian Might Say
What?
You don’t feel at home in your country,
almost overnight?
All the simple things
you cared about,
maybe took for granted. . .
you feel
insulted, invisible?
Almost as if you’re not there?
But you’re there.
Where before you mingled freely. . .
appreciated people who weren’t
just like you. . .
divisions grow stronger.
That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do.
(Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens.
Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.)
Yes, a wall. Ours came later but. . .
who talks about how sad the land looks,
marked by a massive wall?
That’s not a normal shadow.
It’s something else looming over your lives.
~~~~
Copyright 2019 Naomi Shihab Nye. From The Tiny Journalist. Included by permission of the author.
Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes.
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Dear Naomi, telling the truth beautifully, always.
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“there” and “not there” . . . so true . . . “how sad the land looks.” So beautifully said by Naomi S. Nye.
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yes, beautiful and sad.
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oh thank you, thank you, thank you for this poem.
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It’s great, isn’t it?
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I’ve thought for years that Naomi represents everything that is fine and generous in poetry. And this poem is perfect for now because it’s not a poem, it’s an anthem. May we walk down the street, holding its banner.
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Hear! Hear! I’ll join the parade.
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Oh, to have normal shadows, not from enforcing divisions and hatreds, but that shade us from the overwhelming burn. Thanks to Vox Populi for sharing Naomi Shihab Nye today. As the title of another of her poems reminds: we need a “Vocabulary of Dearness.” She brings us that, poem by poem.
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Indeed she does. Naomi’s work represents an essential American voice.
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Naomi’s poems are perfect in every way. She makes writing poems look easy.
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Her wisdom and love should guide our ship. I am a sad one in my own country, every beautiful thing in my life (and it’s unbelievable how many) yet reminds me of the terror and the hunger and the wrong taking place elsewhere. It qualifies everything about my life. It is that Shadow of a wall standing starkly where no walls belong. I don’t know what, but we must do something.
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Beautifully said, Sean. Thank you.
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Thank you for saying that, Sean.
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The same here.
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