Flawed Landscape: Poems, 1987-2008

atac

a am, SHARIF S. ELMUSA "Flawed Landscape

is an extraordinary book that verges between the grief ot being

displaced and the joy o f being alive. Elmusa speaks with the anger o f the aggrieved, but

P O E M S

1987-2008

also with tenderness and understanding for those he left behind and thnse he meets along the way. Elmusa is a true poet, a yearner for a better life and for the constancy o f time." — P a b l o Medina, poet, author o f Points ofBalance/Puntos

SHARIF S.

de apoyo

ELMUSA "Sharif Elmusa writes with exquisite energy and empathy, and has, for decades, been one o f m y favorite poets. His work is original and necessary. Celebrate this stunning collection!" — N a o m i Shihab N y e . poet and anthologist "These are an exile's poems, marked by loss but offered with a generous spirit. Through them, the landscape transforms—revealing, through Elmusa's vision, its difficult beauty. This is not grounds for despair, then. But ground to work from. That is hope, indeed." — M e l a n i e Carter, poet SHARIF S . ELMUSA is a widely published poet, scholar, and translator. He co-edited the anthology Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American

Poetry. Elmusa, w h o holds

a P h . D . from M.I.T., is former director o f Middle East Studies and currently associate professor o f political science at the American University in Cairo. H e is Palestinian by birth, American by citizenship. $15.00

ISBN 978-1-56656-734-3 5 15 0 0

INTER] INK HOOKS An imprint. >: Interlink Publishing Gruup. Int. www.imrrlinkbtmlivi nm

POEMS

1987-2008

SHARIF S.

4

ELMUSA

Inlr lllk An imprtm nf Interlink Publishing Group. Inc. Northampton. Massachusetts

T h e Two A n g e l s

In B a l a n c e

W h a t M a k e s the M a n ?

3

T h e L i t t l e P r i n c e and the A i r Puree P i l o t

4

Flawed Landscape

fo

In t h e R e f u s e C a m p

8

A n E p i t a p h for a M a s s G r a v e i n S a b r a a n d S h a t i l a

9

To Feel the H u m i l i a t i o n

10

Life W a s R o u f t h l y P o f c h t

11

T h e F-raser

13

With N e w Enfclanders

15

ADayintheLifeofNablus

M o o n s and Donkeys

17

21

39

But I Heard the Drops

40

N o F l o w e r s for Flowers' Sake

Meand

ftcasso

Soliloquy

41

43

45

PARTTHREE

Roots

49

M y Stella B e e r T s h i r t Iries to C o m e out of the C l o s e t

Transit at C h a r l e s D e G a u l l e A i r p o r t

How O d d T h e s e A mphibifins

Snapshots

55

56

57

Expatriates

Sun Lines

PART TWO

38

58

59

IIowThinl^sMifyate

60

Birth

53

A r e n ' t We A l l Brothers?

D r e a m on t h e S a m e M a t t r e s s

32

T h e Faisal-Jesus Bust

S h e F a n s the Word

34

A LiulePieceofSky

Like Early Man

35

Haven't You Found M y Brother in A m e r i c a ?

O n e Pillow

}7

Yearning

64

06

68

Homeward Bound

62

70

67

52

.

.

I »

¥ B H

>

W h a t M a k e s the Man?

T h e Little P r i n c e and the A i r Force Pilot

What makes the man

"\W should have seen the imploded children you have killed in your last air raid," said the little prince to the air force pilot he had chanced on planet F52.

who meanders, like an uncertain river, before deciding, what to have for dinner

'I did not mean to kill children,

which film to see when he last had a h a i r c u t

when I dropped the bombs,"

-

answered the pilot

what makes this man close one eye aim intently through the scope of his rifle and become the most precise, the most direct of animals?

"If you had not meant to kill them. why, then, did you let your bombs fall on a tall building, full of apartments? Apartments are where children live like bees live in beehives and birds live in nests on the trees. and ants in anthills. What a lethal life you lead." Unfa7ed,thepilot retorted. "I was after the monsters who hid in the building." "May I point out," said the little prince, pointing his forefinger at the pilot, "children arechildren, they spend their time bonding with important toys and ball games;

S H A I i l l S. E l M USA

Flawed L a n d s c a p e

they cunnot be responsible for who lives with them in the building/ Still, deepl y upset the little prince turned to the small fox lying, by his feet; and, without preface, he said, "the logic of g,rowirups is odd, isn't it?"

And itcame to pass, we lost the war. and became a nation of refugees. It is always the beginning. Fueled by fear, my father fathered theclan, lugged me in his arms, and headed.on his peasant feet, across plain and impassable mountain, wi thout a compass, headed east. We set dow n i n a c a m p i n a desert. without the sinuous sands of the movies, by the g^teless town of Jericho. In that flawed landscape, under the shadow of the dark rocks of the Mount of Temptation. the world was kind to us. The United Nations, our godfather. doled out flour and rice and cheddar. "yellow," cheese—sharp beyond our palettes. My father remembered his twelve olive trees every day for ten years. He remembered the peasants say i ng, to t he ol i vc tree, Had she felt for their toil. shed yield not olives, buttears, iind the tree answering. Tears you have enough; I gj ve you oil to lig,ht your lamps, to nourish, and to heal.

s

FLAWED LANDSCAPE

S H A K I t S. F.I.MUSA

«

Then one day he let &o. Let gp.

In the Refugee Camp

My lather was no Ulysses. He found a new land, and stayed away on the farm, eking,out some rougji happiness.

and, for punish menu summoned father's shadow.

The huts were made of mud and hay. their thin roots feared the rain, and walls slouched like humbled men. The streets were laid out in a g,rid, as in New \brk.

Shestuffedourthin bones with sentiments,

but without the dignity of names

as if to makes us immobile. Her past was insatiable:

or asphalt Dust rei&ned. Women &rew pale chickens and children

The new house they had just built,

feeding, them fables from the lost land.

windows on four sides, tall and urched,

And a madman sawed the minaret

to let in the ample Iig,ht,

where a melodious voice cried for help on behalf of the believers.

My mother stayed home. Shepherded a pack, of twelve.cleaned and yelled

to spread out the prayers; how my father rushed to ask for her hand the day after she had kept him in line

Of course I g^7.ed at the sk y

at the water well; how they found

on clear nights, at stars dri7.zling,

the body of her brother soaked in sweorscented blood, at the police station. after he had been killed by the discriminate bullets of the British soldiers.

soft grains of liftht, at the moon's deliberate face. at thegpod angel wrapped in purpleair. I had no ladder and nothing, from heaven fell in my crescent hands.

No statues were built in thecamp; the dead would have been ashamed. Th e 1 i ving, dreamed—the dreams of the wounded.

Ah. how I cursed Adam and Eve

In their houses the radio was the hearth,

and the One who made them refugees.

and news the oracle.

7

FLAWED LANDSTAPF

SHARIF S

ELMUSA

8

A n E p i t a p h for a M a s s G r a v e in S a b r a and Shatila

To Feel the H u m i l i a t i o n

Our defenders left us

Today I have seen of war all I want to see.

after we had been promised safety. But we were gunned down, bludgeoned by axes. hoes.

A row of men with blindfolded eyes

by nocturnal cowardice.

and surrendered hands squat, backs hunched, before a stone wall.

Mothers and fathers brothers and sisters friends and neighbors—

A young boy stays home

the bulldozers hurled us all

for fivedays, alone,

into this fasfdug hole,

with the corpses of his family.

hurled us all at once the earth was so dumbfounded—

A man gestures, with loathing,

it could not cry: "Enough."

about how a soldier had defecated on his bed. An old woman flails

Welienow.likeall thedead,

her arms in despuir, begging

in vast repose.

the distant heavens.

When you come by

To feel the humiliation.

please say a prayer

to touch the grief of each

then keep quiet

I would have to become a monster

keep quiet.

with many hearts.

*

FLAWED

LANDSCAPE

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

10

the earth-fill of what used to be a cistern

Life w a s R o u g h l y Ri£,Ht

where he mig,ht have hidden arms. The next duy a blood clot clogged

The last time I saw my cousin, Miqdad,

the left side of his brain.

before this last war, he was back home for good from die rich Gulf.There, he ci rculated. imperfectly, tending, the business of men

His eyelids are now lowered, at half-mast; the few words he utters are hieroglyphic fish and birds.

with superior luck. To make the worth of his long, migration visible, he built a house, a handsome house on a hilltop, the essential dish raised over the red-tiled roof, netting, the news—the chewing, qraf of Palestine. He sa i d 1 i fe was roug,hl y rigjtt He cherished the drizzle of each day: dinner served on time, a kid's good g,rade, the marigolds' longevity in the austere garden. With his sharp face and something,always in his hand, he looked like a figure in an Ancient Egyptian relief presenting,with sing^ilardelig,htnn offering,to thegpd. But the soldiers weren't invited. They bangjed on the metal door of the house and kicked it with their boots and when he opened it they made him turn and stuck the gjun into his back. They used him as "a human shield," to search the house, room after neat room, and made him dig,wi th a hoe thoy had fetched from an armored car

11

FLAWED LANDSCAPE

S H A R I F s. E L M U S A

12

Wa king up on the seventh day,

The Eraser

He saw that the refugees had multiplied and become fabulists, conjuring forest fi res. In the beginning the Eraser razed the village. He let the villagers be frightened into fleeing their houses and their fields, and He saw that they had fled. and He heard the ghosts talking strange ta 1 k in the empty houses, and He let the houses be rubble, without form, and let the stray animals roam the site, and He saw that the sight was an unnecessary reminder, and He let there be a forest of native trees rise above and cover the debris, and Hesuw that the forest was like a natural growth, und He let a sign rise on the side of the highway, bearing the site's new name, and He saw that the new namederived from his own tale, and He let the old name be expunged from I lis kingdom's maps and encyclopedias and He saw that the old name was gone. und He saw all that He unmade and, O wow, was it good and. on the sixth day, He took a break.

13

FLAWED LANIISCAPE

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

With New Engenders

With New En£,landers

you muffle the sandstorms.

I miss my Boston dentist The first time I met him, before injecting, the Novocain into my anxious gums, he paused and asked where I was from. From Palestine, I answered. "How is the weather in Palestine?" he wanted to know. The weather there is temperate. soil terra rosa. The shepherds on the hills have all but disappeared. Winter sends modest ruins, animates the hardened earth: red poppies swaying, in the breeze, little spokesmen of beauty: cotton flowers, purple, the sung, of their thorns final, like the rebelliousgesturesof Jesus. Summer's sun is perpendicular TheoUl man would be dejected without cartloads of watermelons. No blunt pleasures. Season blends into season in gpod faith.

FLAWED LANDSCAPE

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

No curfew

A Day in the Life of Nablus

during our five-week stay.

We fall not on our knees, but on our hearts —Vassar Miller

Si Walking on University Boulevard.

Summer The ligs are bruise pink,

I spot soldiers manning a check point

tomatoes luscious enough

the school has been ordered s h u t

to stop a hurried man.

And. as if in the recurring dream.

Ignore the flies.

I frisk myself for my passport

At 9 a.m. peasants savor shislvkebab

but find my pockets empty.

in puny, vaulted eateries.

I go past the black machine guns

Ah. the roasting coffee's aroma,

thinking how as a boy

the folklore of each of the senses.

I caught black wasps and removed their stingers.

Everything here is for sale: children's toys, kitchen utensils, bananas, peanuts, pine nuts, posters, cassettes, straw mats, sponge mats, watches, Elvis'sT-shirts, turkey breasts,shoes.

Office of Reconciliation.

The vendor in disheveled clothes

clad in brown caftan and red turban

A few yards away from the checkpoint I read a sign: Inside, a Samaritan rabbi is ensconced on a couch, waiting

arranges a feast of pears,

resigned to waiting.

lifts one with pride as he might his own child.

Si

I le bol lows into the air: *Go to sleep with asweet mouth."

On mi immaculate wall

Hesees the soldiers.

of a friend's living room

He does not brood over power or history

hangs a picture in a gilded frame: a woman squattingamidstthe rubble of her housedemolished by thearmy.

n

FLAWED LANDSCAPE

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

la

cheek cupped in hand,

si

peering, into a white, empty bucket.

In gpwns of soft 1 ig,hts

Si

the town performs the ritual of sleep. Will they caress the mouth oi'the vendor,

In cafes men cong,re£ate in the afternoons,

and the silence of the woman who lost her house?

slowly sip their tea

The settlement, fortress on the mountain peak.

(as i f ti me were t heir own),

and the jail on the hilltop

shuffle cards, spur the backgammon dice

flood their sleep with yellow ligjits.

(as if chance were their own). They listen to song^

I want the kind breeze

of unrequited love, broken promises, parting^.

the power of pears

When the sun sinks behind the hills

the sound of the fl ute,

they salute the fading,day. irreconciled,

melodious and sad,

leaving, the folded market

like the hills of this land,

to the screech of a rmored cars.

tog/antusall. vendorsand soldiers, gjTant us ample love that we may turn this troubled pagp

The sky flowers tonig,ht

that we may sleep with a sweet mouth.

The stars are as brigji t and reul aschildren's eyes as the faces of women lowed after years of waiting, A meteor dives like a deft acrobat A satellite sails west to east, unperturbed. Russian or American? Scientist or spy? Or a station whore voices of distant lovers dovetail?

FLAWED LAN DSL A PL

MIAKIt

5> E LM U S A

20

twoold men and two middle-aged women

Moons and Donkeys

sitting in a row on low chairs on the curb, caught in boredom's web, unleashed their eight eyes on him,

Gaza i s a cage.

with such penetrating,persistent stares

barb-wired on the inland sides: the sea mostly off limits. No mountains, no valleys, the place is flat Forget about movies, books and bars. The is said to be over, the price paid, and will be paid further. A torpid peace is setrlingin. What were the Prophets smitten by?

he began to scan his shin and pants, and tool his face with hisagitated hand to find out what was wrong with him, until he almost stumbled.

Si T h e longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of

I am told The yel low finches perch on the fence, consider,

the gate," thus Marcus Teertius Varro. This is Eretzcheckpoint the northern gate of Gaza, a fortress of concrete blocks, barbed wire, and soldiers: young men in

smell the rampant sewers then wing back tothedesert.

seaweedgreen fatigues, as clean and charged as their guns. The man crossing thegate was dead, a student who had died in

I go around, 1 i ke a n anc i e nt C h i nese poet watching moons and donkeys.

Moscow and was brought home for burial. His coffin was hauled from the airport in an ambulance, attended by a cousin. Atthe proper booth, thedriver handed a soldier the requisite documents for passage. The soldier told the driver and the

Si

cousin that the coffin too must be X-rayed.

A man who I i ved for many years in Norway, told me that on the first day back here he went out for a walk when, a few blocks from his parents' house,

11

The cousin reluctantly yielded to the order. He and the driver slid the coffin onto the machine, but only a part of the coffin could fit in at once: the machine was short, the coffin long. The first part done, the driver turned the ambulance

FLAWED LANDSCAPE S I l A R t r S. E L M U S A

around to face the other side of the machine. When the two

ering, their guard and allowing, a casual exchange that mig,ht

men tried to insert the second half o f the c o f f i n through the

make the guns momentarily invisible. But this time—thanks

door o f the machine, they discovered the door was too

to the mysterious Japanese desig,n, my friend's inexperience

narrow. And the coffin was hung, between the ambulance and

and the common purpose of wanting, to open the hood—a

the machine,

modicum of humanity intruded between us. Not enougji io let us througji, though.

A moment on as it must have seemed to the cousi n. an etern i ry in limbo, Kor soon, as thougji drawing, the line of his tolerance, he

When it began to seem like an impasse, my friend pulled her

yelled at the soldiers, in Hebrew, to leave the dead man in

cell phone out of her purse and called a coworker The me'

peace. A row ensued.Then the soldiers manipulated the door

chanic asked if he could speak to him: of course, she said

of the machine, and the coffin was all X-rayed cleared. The

(whatchoicedid she have, really?). He said thecoworker told

cousin was detained, for questioning. The ambulance sped

him the handle was inside the gjove compartment; and

away with the body, the dust in its wake tossing, away the

straight he went and opened the gJove compartment; and

shredsof a newspaper

there it was, the handle.

Si

A'

Again, Erctz checkpoint und another rite of passage I was

After a few weeks

gping, with a friend to Jerusalem in her white UN jeep. On

thespiritcorrugated.

the way out the jeep, like all vehicles leaving, Gaza, had to be

like the rooftops in the refugee camps.

inspected. A soldier asked my friend to open the hood. She

My feet wal ked backward.

was new here and hadn t opened the hood before. She looked

like the feet of the shoeless children.

for the handle under the instrument panel, and couldn't find i t Then I tried, to no avail.

Si

A soldier came in and couldn't locate it either. He called

At dawn

another uniformed man who told us he was a mechanic. The

the muezzins' megaphones

mechanic also searched, in vain. My frustrated friend said

clash, overlap,

maybe Mad el i n e A1 bri g,htcouldhelp(she was in Jerusalem

each spurred o n -

that day). We all laugjied. I had been through Israeli check*

to call us, louder

points countless times before, without the soldiers ever low-

and louder—for prayer.

Fl.AWm I ANDSfAPF

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

to amplify toGod our impotence.

returned in the evening leadings donkey freighted with goods. The customs officials inspected the load, found nothing contraliand and let him go. Jeha made the daily excursion for thirty years, then retired to the city, a rich man.

The ash-colored donkey

this street theater.

Upon his retirement he began to build a luxurious house, commensurate wi th his wealth. While he was at the site one day, a customs officer recognized him. The officer approached him and greeted him and inquired whether he had changed his job and become a construction worker Jeha answered. No, he was retired and supervising the workers building his own house. The officer couldn't believe it and told Jeha he must be kidding, a poor man with a donkey couldn't afford such a fabulous mansionjeha retorted, he in fact was rich, from all the smuggling The officer said, "Come on, you couldn't have been a smuggler, we inspected your donkey's load every time. What d id you smuggle, man?" Jeha replied,"Well. I smuggled donkeys."

Si

Si

I want to cross borders unseen

The corpse of a huge beast

like salmon

Crushed watermelons were strewn

like contaminated wind.

al 1 around. Bands of women

was pregnant and flaunting it— belly full, hanging low like the night's moon. She stepped into the road, slowly, deli berately, then balked.Turned her head this way and that All the honking fell on deaf ears. I watched from my slopped car diis mock checkpoint

lay in the middle of a boulevard.

wav ing banners

si

with the word METAPHYSICAL marched down the curbs;

Oncejeha lived by die borderline between two countries, which suited him well because he worked as a smuggler. Everyday he crossed the border in the morning and

FLAWED LANDSCAPE

they had no legs, only shoes. On the rooftops first appeared snipers; soon the barrels of their r i f l e s S H A K I F S. E L M U S A

morphed into bamboo flutes. From thesidestreets a carnival of men and women, barely dressed,

A crescent moon g>amed, rocked, like a gondola. The orthodox clouds marched on. and covered it

flowed into the boulevard, gyrating, from hip to toe to invisible drums.

si

I followed them, braying,with lust, like a he-donkey

A daily summer ritual. A wedding, motorcade in the late afternoon:

One woman winked at me. "See you in the spring,"

A few cars (for the lucky ones),

and kept dancing, The sun was vertical.

a bus, and a pickup truck or two

and 1 soaked i n sweat. Someone bl urted out

packed with young, boys

"All of this and it's hardly noon."

who laugji and dance, clap and sing, 1 i ke bi rds si ng,i ng, to make themselves visible

Si Scores of fishi ng, boats

in the cage.

spread out of the meagjer port. In thedepth of the nigjit their kerosene lamps an oasis of lig,hts, soft, yel low— a beauty hard to conquer or resist The fishermen doze off. then row again. t LAW

E D

LANUM.AH.

Birth

I cried my first small cry on April 12,1947, mother's estimate, two weeks before my cousin whose birth certificate survived the war. Because the cry was a boy's it was amplified by ululations. mounds of buttered rice and Turkish delight. The village, Abbasiyya(not Abbysinia), PART TWO

lay far enough from the sea not to spaw n sailors, close enough to have horizon.

My mother counts my twenty finders from afar. —Mahmoud Darwish

The highway made a small gesture to its modest homes. My parents tilled the red earth. their young backs stooped over it made it articulate with oranges and grapes. They fenced the fields with cactus plants and ma~wa-weel, blues, hearty us molasses.cutting as the hoe's edge. They groped one night towardeachothentired, a starlight steal i ng through the cracks in the door. They wished for a son to secure their old age, to leaven their pleusure. 31

FLAWEDLANUSLAHK

Dream on the Same M a t t r e s s

Do not eat from the same dish, said Gi bran, but the prophet never married.

Welcome

Drink from the same cup,

to the tribe of the wed.

I say.

But before you enter

and dream on the same mattress.

the tent let me stitch a patch or two onto your quilt Resilience. a shrewd caliph once said, is the golden rule of politics. Resilience, my kinsfolk, is the diamond rule of marriage. This cord of love that binds you now keep it taut— g,ive when she pulls and pull when he g^ves. Marriage is a rose garden where squash is fond to g,row. Accept them both: Thespiritseeks inspiration and the stomach sustenance.

S H A R I F S. E L M U S A

32

FLAWED

LANDSCAPE

S h e F a n s t h e Word Like E a r l y M a n (rbr Karmah) Reading Lay th a story, I watch its magic dissolve

A word round and full

in the white of his smile in the blue of his faraway eyes.

finally blooms on the raw tongue

One day he will figure out the moral.

of the child. I tuck him in bed

It makes her giddy.

next to the soft bl ue 1 ight

She fans the word

of the globe. I observe the names

by her bear and bunny by the flowers in the vase by the strange forms in the mirror by the water breaking loose from the hose. She fans the word as a peacock fans its tail as a man his windfall, unsure of having, afraid of losing

of cities and countries, borders in red lines, longitudes and latitudes, the mental hoops that make us believe the Earth belongs to us. In which language will death order me to acquiesce? Where will theghosts in the neighboringgraves come from? Will the necromancer be able to pronounce my name? It doesn't matter in the grave. I watch our picture on the wall, my hand bracing him, to keep him from fallingoff the branch of the blossoming cherry tree. Or is it he bracing me?

SHAKIr

S.

tLMUSA

FLAWED

LANDSCAPE

I fall asleep by his sid

She F a n s t h e Word

with one eye open, like early Man.

(hbr Karmah)

A word round and full finally blooms on the raw tongue of the child. It makes her giddy, She fans the word by her bear and bunny by the flowers in the vase by the strange forms in the mirror by the water breaking loose from the hose. She fans the word as a peacock fans its tail as a man his windfall. unsure of having, afraid of losing it.

SHAim

s. II MIISA

S H A R I F S . F.I.MUSA

O n e Pillow

T h e Two A n g e l s

I rest my ti red head on two pi 1 lows,

Among the things mother told me

begging the day's creatures to let me sleep.

a s a child:

It is midnight, and must be dawn where you are. The pulse travels {aster than the U^ht.

Every person has two angels

Which side are you sleeping on?

standing on hisshoulders. And they weigh every deed. On the right Nakir.

I feel my right arm

for the good deeds;

sheltering your face;

for the bad, Nakeer,

you smile a knowing smile.

on the left.

one I would pocket if I went to war.

That is why my gait is tilted now

We areas happy as when we met I don't know whether we are young or old, but my head nestles next to yours— on one pillow.

and as the years

pass

my back will grow hunched. Such nakedness!

FLAWED

LANDSCAPE

S H A R l r S. LLMUSA

In Balance

But I Heard the Drops

I was powerless against you then—

My father had a reservoir of tears, They trickled dow n unseen. But I heard the drops drip from his voice 1 i ke drops from a loosened tap. For thirty years I heard them.

you noticed only my violations. Now westand in balance in the brass pans of the scale, and I sit next to you. marvel at how the sun baked your face black, simple, tenacious. and how from the g,ood earth, the earth you made gpod. your heart g,rew tender as the hands roug,h. Father this apricot tree so lush, climbing,madly toward thesky, yet bears no apricots. She must be infatuated with herself. Father. theg,rapevine in Uncle's garden speaks no grapes. She must be in mourning over his death, he planted her Father, why don't you like the city? Hike to look

undistracted

at the sky. to see the faceof God.

S H A R I F S, E L M U S A FLAWED LANDSCAPE

•1'

But I don't I just bury my head

N o F l o w e r s for F l o w e r s ' S a k e

underground, like a potato, to hide my form, wVuch 1 better leave w'uVvout aa"-ec*.ives.anc\\ex my "uesntasA

I cannot understand the sublime,

on the sumptuous dirt and darkness.

patrician ways of the flowers. Cannot tell when a rose is sick, or why a pansy doesn't answer my questions. I count before I pluck the daisy's petals, for I prefer the illusion of "she loves me" over thedespairof "not." 1 had to wait many years for my petite Chinese friend to point out how the tulips in Washington were so large, like American women. And the hyacinth—I first met the hyacinth i n Eliot's wasteland, wasting, Then I saw her in a real garden. and she looked more like a bird than a flower, a bird that had stopped, suddenly, in mid-flig,ht and its penfupenergy blazed into a filig,ree of brilliance. I could blame my being,such a philistineon my parents who g,row olives and pears and fig,s and whatnot. The blossoms of their orange trees are only a prelude to the fruit No flowers for flowers' sake. The most abstract plant around their house is mint 41

H A W E D LANDSCAPE

S H A R I F S. ELMUSA

42

He felt at home only in the austere hills of Andalusia,

Me and Picasso

inhaling the harsh odors of thyme. He couldn't swim,

On most mornings

according to Picasso:

I fortify my breakfast plate

PonraitoftheArtistasa

with blue-green za afar

\bun& Man.

Neither can I.

from the rocky hills of Palestine.

He was shorter

Woul dn't he exchange

and much bulkier than me.

a few days in the grave

And he loved boxing,

for some of mine?

but loathed being punched. In the only duel I've ever had my drunk opponent knocked me out, flat on the ground. The painter's rigid, un'curved physique, had the grace of a turtle on the dance floor. At a school function my little son once begged me. "Dad. can you do me a favor please, don't dance" Jealousy drove him to lock his lover in the studio until one day a fire ate the place and nearly killed her. I would never go this far!

41

V LAW tU

LANDSCAPE

SHARIF S

ELMUSA

Last nigjit my dead cousin called

Soliloquy

and said he and grandmother had found a house, a pleasant white house on a hilltop, When I was a boy I didn't want to die

then asked mc to join them for dinner.

before a woman with a candid body

Tomorrow IT 1 race up and down the steep

filled my arms, her tongue danced with my tongue, her teeth crashed with my own

stairs

and passion flowed between us in the slow nig,ht

to test my breath.

When the likeness of her came I was m colleg,e, away from home, and I leaptout ofbed each time I thougjht I could die and be flown back in a box, unable to wave for my father at the airport and hand him my fresh, family diploma. Alas, there are always reasons for living, I have now causes that lose, poems I've failed to write, a wife and children—a counterweight. It's almost midni&ht and they are asleep. I am downstairs, in the living, room, rocking,in therocking,chair. smoking, a pipe. I stuff the bowl, a pinch ata time. sniK the aroma, and strike a match. \\>usk,Yike tYie smoke,in my own lYissoAutioix.

45

FLAWED

LANDSCAPE

Roots Home is wh ere people can read your name correctly on the tombstone. —Attilaj6zsef

At birth my parents called me Sharif Said Hussein Elmusa andonandon

a caravan of names

lagging behind as if to rei n me in from straying PART THREE He [Odysseus]

saw many cities and learned the thoughts of many men. —IudoCalvino

on the crooked routes. But one night on a high balcony under a full, urban moon, a mountain woman from the Rockies held me in the clear pond of her eyes, as if I was the first Adam. And I followed love. Uncle Sam, casual and efficient inventor of the T-shirt that simplifier of the race, found my name baroque, bulging with self-importance, yanked out grandfather and downsized father even before old age

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