YekiM,

I don’t know how to convey you,

not entirely, anyway. 

There’s some sort of restriction somehow. 

It’s like an obscure brilliance. 

Like your light is effervescent but incommunicable. 

I see you in the daffodils in spring

-orange

In the morning. 

In the blackened sky 

In the moon-

so mellow. 

You are the atmosphere

It’s relentless really. 

Uncompromising but pliable. 

Uncomplicated, indescribable-

Somehow unclearly transparent. 

You are the sunbeams, the rays and the warmth.

Sometimes, you’re the desert and your fountain is dry. 

Sometimes, you’re an ocean and the entire sea. 

I drown in your tranquility. 

It’s convoluted, really

in the simplest way. 

It’s been perpetual and never ending. 

I see you indiscriminately. 

I miss your face. 

Sometimes, I can’t remember, I repress. 

You are orange daffodils

-m

When you’re burdened with grief your thoughts are heavy. 

Your heart is heavy. 

Your chest is heavy. 

The weight of the sense of your loss is devastating.  

The loss of a parent or a sibling or a relative that you’re very close to or a friend is devastating. 

However, the loss of a child is paralyzing.  

It is beyond comprehension. 

It is insanity unfolding itself and wrapping you up in its arms and smothering your sense of being. 

It is an indescribable feeling that all at the same time is numbing and excruciating. 

There is no right or wrong way to grieve. 

There is no sense to be made.  There is no thing that can fill the depth of the void. 

It is crippling. 

Time doesn’t make it better or easier. 

It never lessens. 

It is a burden that weighs heaviest on the spirit and the soul. 

It is the most generous and prominent pain. 

It is forever and abundant in its giving. 

It is not lost in the forced smile or the moments of happiness. 

It is not lost in the hours of work. 

It does not diminish into the night sky when your body lays down to rest. 

It doesn’t sleep. 

It hovers like a shadow that never disappears.

It is the darkest hour that doesn’t go away. 

Not Ever.

-I can’t strum a guitar

I don’t know the chords 

but the music I hear when I write you this song

comes out in these words. 

-I can’t play a piano 

and I can’t hold a tune 

but when I sing your melody 

I’m the man on the moon. 

All the lyrics I’ve written

can’t depict the beat of a drum

and when I feel like I can’t go on 

I look to my SON. 

-There’s an orchestra of memories,

a symphony of heartache that strums 

at the peak of my agony

And then all the love comes. 

-I sing your name. 

I breathe in. 

Exhale the pain.

-I can’t draw your face

I don’t know how to paint. 

The art of your love engraved on to my brain. 

There’s no restraint. 

Can’t illustrate your hue. 

Your shades transcend

the art you’ve created my love,

embedded within. 

-I draw your name. 

I breathe in. 

Exhale the pain.

I can’t procure your rythm. 

I can’t encapsulate the depth of your prism….

I am your heartbeat. 

I sustain your energy.

-I can’t portray you with dance. 

No need for creativity. 

I abide the life you gave. 

I am you and you are me. 

-I live your name. 

I breathe in. 

Exhale the pain. 

I live your life. 

I live your name. 

                              -m

I will always be enormous in the presentation of my words when I am depicting how I love you. 

No apologies. 

Because even the word itself,

love, 

feels meager in comparison to the temper of my heart. 

So I will tell you I love you and when I say it imagine the face of the God you believe in. 

That is my creature, my human, my body. 

Because I LOVE you. 

And there is no other way. 

                                     -m

My feet never touched your ground. 

My toes never thread through your soil. 

I’ve never smelled your fragrance. 

I have been deprived of the flavor of your earth. 

The blood that runs through the veins of my existence is as green as the oil extracted from your olive trees and as red as the fire that burns in your belly for your desire for freedom. 

The compassion in my heart is native of your guidance. 

The intensity of the connotation of your greetings, be it welcoming or bidding farewell is lost in translation in any other culture because its depth is constructed from Genesis. 

And your culture, my God, your culture! 

It moves through me mercilessly like a tsunami that grips with intention and force for cleansing and rebirth. 

You are FALASTEEN. 

You are my mother and my father and my grandfather and his grandfather and his and his and his…..

You are the culmination of every sincere aroma, 

Every spice of za3tar , every slice of jibneh, every tray of Shay and nawashif. 

Every sabah el khare and every tisbahoo ala khare. 

Every inshallah 

Every habibi 

Every Yuma and Yaba ever spoken. 

Your folklore has been fed to me at every wedding, every funeral, every gathering, every crossing. Your legend is inconceivable  

And my soul was born of your womb ya habibti Falasteen! 

Allah ye 3een 3laki! 

                                    -m

Now I yearn for the simplicity of your life. For the regularity of the 

mundane. 

I crave your essence. It’s the spirit of your soul and the being of your being. 

There is no safer place for me than in your presence. You are home and with you I am home.

This is my God. 

Brain!
Shut the fuck up!
Thoughts. Thoughts. Thoughts!
Coffee!
Where’s my favorite cup?
I wonder if we’ll get more snow.
I need to fill the dogs bowl.
What should I make for dinner today?
I’ll figure it out after the laundry.
Coffee…
Brain brain brain!
You’re making me crazy, got me questioning, am I sane or insane.
What are the politics today?
Are the boys good?
Stop thinking!

I crave the pungency of the soul of everything so that I can feel the essence of its everything, so that the learning and unfolding, the peeling back the layers until it is bare, drinks me into its self. Only then can I know. Only then can I see. 

-m

You are stardust and dawn. You are midnight and heavens light.
You are ever and never gone.
You are raindrops and morning dew. You are fragrance of changing seasons. You are full moon. You are seed of the wild flower. You are climbing trees.
You are sun rays and timeless hours. You are warm breeze.
You are all of these things. You are everything. You are when the bird spreads his wings. You are the song when he sings.
You are the bird. You are when the bird sings…

Mama,

I couldn’t relate when all your breath fell into the pit of your stomach and refused to find its way back up into your lungs no matter how deep or how hard you tried to breathe it back up. 

I know now even though that knowing is minuscule compared to yours. Still, now I can relate. 

Mama,

I couldn’t relate when your brain was taken hold by irrationality and squeezed into the prison of fear and worry. 

The knowing that this was the beginning of the end. The things you would miss. What would become of the world you created, the children you raised, the grandchildren you adored with all your might? I know mama. I know. 

Yuma habibti Yuma. 

My suffering is NIL in comparison to yours but now I know. 

The opening of the shell of our selves.

The baring of our bodies so that we can be healed. The cutting open, the scars, the exhaustion, though mine can’t compare to yours, alas, I have the familiarity and my heart aches for you more than it ever had with the pounding of the knowledge of the poking and prodding.

I am more tired for you than I have ever had the ability of discerning. 

My eyes have been opened Yuma. I am more awake than I could have ever imagined. 

I SEE the flowers. I TASTE the flavors. I am captivated by the grip of life. 

Mama,

I couldn’t relate because I didn’t know. 

I knew only that I loved you. I knew only of my own dismay of my own sorrow. I knew only how to interpret my thoughts, my feelings, my, my, my. 

I could only draw a conclusion based on my own contemplation but now I know. 

Habibti yuma, now I know. 

Finally I have digested some, only some of you. It is peculiar indeed. 

                              -m