In Granada …
Nathalie Handal
The shadows of birds fading on a fighter’s back …
— …
I’d like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples’ prayers the story of hearts. I’d like to be a scarf so I can place it over my hair and understand other worlds. I’d like to be the voice of a soprano singer so I can move through all borders and see them vanish with every spell-binding note. I’d like to be light so I illuminate the dark. I’d like to be water to fill bodies so we can gently float together indefinitely. I’d like to be a lemon, to be zest all the time, or an olive tree to shimmer silver on the earth. Most of all, I’d like to be a poem, to reach your heart and stay. …
There is a sorceress in our night. A sky that only moves memory to make …
He said I was different because I was dark. She said I was different because …
She told me, Mama, I want to see the world. I told her, Go. When she returned she said: I saw barefoot women carry water from village to village, saw men limp from border to border, saw children disappear in tunnels that lead to freedom, or so they hoped. I saw families who lost everything, even what they dreamed they’d have one day. Saw history hide its shame in the huts of poor people. And one night, I saw girls count stomachs swelled up like small balloons, while boys played with empty soda cans. They were so hungry. I saw madness. I told her, What a terrible world. She told me, It’s also in that world that I saw the sky speak to the wind, the wind to the sea, the sea to the waves, and the waves to rising souls that sang with voices so clear, everything took flight. Mama, you have to be brave to see. In their phenomenal eyes, I saw a promising world. …
History can't be rushed. …
Death is careless at times. It confuses love with a wet afternoon in an empty …
This is what I see: …
We kept only the keys, …
We say lightning has no wings …
Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die …