I don't think-- these are two sort of bookend poems in that--
which are dramatic monologues and the voice
of two real poets.
One of whom is the Palestinian poet Fadwa
Tuqan, who died in her late 80s about 10 years--
10, 15 years ago.
And the other was the Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch,
and who died only in her 60s, very suddenly, also not
terribly long ago.
And who was an Israeli political dissident.
And these two women poets were friends
for much of their lives.
And I took the liberty of writing poems
in the voice of other poets, which is--
the story about Fadwa Tuqan is that she, the narrator,
relates in the first poem is in fact a true one.
That her parents pulled her out of school
when she was 12 because a boy from another class in school
sent her a flower via her little brother
and this was considered dangerous.
And then another-- her older brother, who was also a poet,
took her education in hand and thanks to him
she, too, became a writer.
"When I was made a prisoner in my father's house
my mother turned away, swallowing her words.
The potholed path to school became
a vision of my lost future.
It was not even because of a letter.
A boy from the boy's school entrusted
a flower, an almond sprig, for me
to my little brother that was intercepted
by our middle brother.
I was 12, I was no longer to leave the house.
If that twig in blossom sullied an imagined flower,
the metaphor wasn't mine.
I had no words for my ignorance or innocence.
I copied letter after wobbly letter on my school slate.
My vision was astigmatic, strained.
Was there double vision?
God's eyes?
Six months later, my eldest brother
came back, his studies done.
Doctor of letters.
He shelved his books in the attic room
of the house that became a hive, crawling and buzzing with words
and dripping the honey of words on a carpet of flowers.
My days were dust and water, starch and flour, chores,
silence, shame.
I could not envision the school child I'd been
or what I would be.
Words receded.
I spoke so little.
I brought my brother his coffee and shaving water.
The rest of the house was dawn silent.
He was writing a letter, no, something else, carefully.
Hearing each letter that rounded or plunged
like the bud or the root of a flower.
And the vowels' perfume pervaded the house
as he weighed the choices that shaped his revision.
'Do you still care about poetry?'
asked my brother, and began to recite
a mellifluous ladder of words.
'Take this book.
Copy this poem.
Make a list of the words you don't know.
Mark the small vowel for each letter.
Learn it and recite it to me,' said my brother.
We are dust and ash and beauty is brief as a flower,
but a stanza's a room.
A single line is the house you can build.
Throw open the doors to your vision.
I live in my own house now.
In my line of vision an almond tree flowers.
I live by words and on each page I
write a letter to my brothers."