WEBVTT

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This is a poem that could be
dedicated to Mahmoud Darwish.

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I think I know his
spirit is very much,

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and some of his words
are very much in it.

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It's called "Pomegranate."

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"Mid-October, ripe as a
pomegranate on a market stall

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in a myth so often turned by
Western women you'd think that

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each one had lived the story.

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He, from elsewhere, draws upon
other stories, other rhythms

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in which to tell them.

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Echoes numbers and an
alphabet which I trace out,

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halting and childish.

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While he speaks to the Greek,
the Kurd, the Spaniard,

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questions language
with a displaced Iraqi,

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and the Jew who riddled
in no man's language,

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the trope of homeland.

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Waits and reads the paper
and some small cafe.

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Who will be the foreigner?

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Who, the lover?

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After years'
displacements, the words

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risk having a double meaning.

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Risk or have the luck of a
double meaning in their roots.

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Some words have their own ideas.

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So a line with bullets
in it transforms them

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deftly to sparrows.

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Why not, waiting right
in the spiral notebook,

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birds remembered bullets?

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The rooftop terrace
pots of bougainvillea.

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Autumn rain clouds mass
above rooftops in a city

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where women read the paper
in cafes, yes, just the way

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he does, waiting for
not more than sunlight,

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the jolt of caffeine,
a glass of water.

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I reach out and pick
up the pomegranate,

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palm its blemished
rind, purple pocked

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by clustered egg-like ruby seeds
that could splash a blood stain

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across a doorstep.

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Memorizing new verbs and nouns,
home, journey, write, school,

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study, family, brother,
sister, and a mother's

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name which can mean, in
context, pilgrim or exile."

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