Abjadarian* in Autumn
Atmospheric river the meteorologists warn,
inches swell and flood in hours. In the surge, leaves
undulate, severed from ash and poplar, from the mammoth cottonwoods.
Bereft of color, I study the redbud’s last holdout.
Tremulous. Defiant, as the rain batters the trees.
Thickets of fallen neighbors at the base of the redbud
jeer loudly from the leaf’s future, their russet veins strafed in mud.
حكاية موسمية رقصة الرياح مع الشجر
خاتمتها اغصان عارية تحتضن اعشاشا مهجرة
Day by day, the light slips through our fingers,
the bulldozer’s jaws are insatiable. Rosemary and
red clay and stone. A family again buries their son’s limbs.
Zealotry wears a custom-made suit, tweets about libel. Time is now
saturated with the melancholy of repetition, spiraling descent,
shopworn incredulities. It all reads like memory generated by algorithm,
صلينا مليا على الشهداء و لكن قبورهم راحت
ضحية نهج المحادثات
طالبوا بالبقاء كما اعتاد الاحياء منا ان نفعل
ظنوا بانهم نالوا حق الصخور التي
عانقت اجسادها الارض و سكنتها لكنهم
غفلوا حقدا لا ينهكه الزمن
Familiar platitudes clutter the timeline
قوت امواتنا دعاء الأمهات المتعبة وأمطار تشرين
Quiet reigns. From inside, the rain is soundless, the trees
keening, glimmering. Eventually, the redbud
loosens its grip and I am not there to witness. The letting go
matter of fact, the metaphor monstrous.
No need for such melodrama, there is actual suffering to attend to,
how it unfolds, how I unfold it by withholding my anger, or by
wasting it where it cannot be of use, commemorating massacres from
yesterday while tomorrow’s eddy and flow.
