(on his grave stone)
You still stop by
And ask the same questions
Every time the answers are different
They change color
Every mental event adds a hue
And I struggle with this sphere of a multitude of lights
That I can’t travel
You blink and look on
Can’t I see it?
And I can’t stop by
Because the skies have put my name on their forbidden list
Mother’s heart can stop any day now
And Reem’s eyes may bleed by every sunset
It all depends on the news forecast
The faces of yesterday that flocked around your grave are gone
There are bullet holes in their smiles
That’s why they won’t visit
They left a message on the telephone wire above the gate
But when Aunt Fatima’s spirit tried to reach it, it screeched
And they mistook it for the ghost of an insurgent
They shot the life out of the wires
And for days it rained
And I couldn’t call Mother
Hussein thinks he remembers you
He smiles when your photo emerges in a kitchen conversation
They’ll never understand why he suddenly smiles
His little nose can smell your pipe
They finally put away your books
The gun powder has turned them black
I will clean them for you
And if my answers are colorless
And my feet have not flown towards your ‘qibla’
And your pages are still stained,
You will know…
It is you who will have to stop by…again
