martes, 28 de abril de 2009

Poemas de Khalil (Luis Nieves)

Summayah

when the dark of evening came,
you began your reign of bombs on our ancient land
and against the fires of anti-aircraft guns
i cradled my summayah in my arms,
and I vowed to you,
oh, enemy of the sun, (1)
we will resist.

your blue black bombs fell as
you came to our lands proclaiming
“all aggression must end!”
but it was you who created these nation states,
and for what reasons were our lands divided at your conference tables?
who was it that cut up our peoples into artificial boundaries?
who separated brothers, uncles and cousins?
before your coming we did not know such worlds.

did you not know?
that at the end of my day,
summayah would run to the gate and jump into my arms?

ahmad.
summayah loved her uncle, ahmad.
before the tortuers trained at fort bragg, north carolina
disappeared him for one year.
before the electric prods
before the pulling of nails from fingers
drove him insane.

she loved ahmad.
now he sits in the sun
everyday.

listen, enemy of the sun,
there are those of us who have read and studied
those of us, who know who underdeveloped africa,
the middle east,
asia,
the pacific,
and the americas.

summayyah would have been six in a month.
and she had asked me to buy her a blue bicycle.

listen, enemy of the sun,
be I left childless,
be i a grave digger,
be I chisling stone markers
i will rise,
you may delay us,
but you cannot stop us.

today, we are burying summayah.
no one speaks.
this is the new world order.

STOP, enemy of the sun!
do not tell me of your democracy,
do not speak of humanitarianism
oh, enemy of the sun,
if you continue to tell me these lies
I will tell you of the middle passage,
i will tell you of your wounded knee,
i will tell you of your trail of tears,
i will tell you of hiroshima,
I will tell you of chile,
i will tell you of grenada,
i will tell you of panama,
i will tell you of my iraq,
i will tell you of my summayah.
but, for the peoples of the world,
i would like to imagine my grand-daughter describing summayah’s laughter
filling clear air, and playing in open fields.

in writing the setting
she will point to these summayahs looking to the skies:

the skies will be blue, clear and bright.

and our summayahs will taste the scent of wildflowers
blossomings.



Jerusalem

my heart,
today reminds me of the first day of our honeymoon.
the olive flowers are blossoming.
rain falls lightly.

you asked to marry
when the blossoms came.
In the hills above our village.

in different times,
we would go
once again
to the hills.
for our twenty-fifth anniversary.

because of you
i asked for permission from my keepers,
for a day,
or an afternoon.
then,
just an hour.

but my captors laughter
was drowned out by the
screaming as the f-16 fighters
bombed gaza-
for the seventh straight day.

it is summer.
because of the heat
i daydream of
a cup of cold water
from the well for our olive trees,
and think of fahim pruning the olive trees in my absence.
as a lonely dove settles on the razorwire
that encircles muhammad, ali myself
and all of palestine.

muhammad had a picture of our flag
when the captors found it
they asked
where is this place?
then they began furiously beating him.

my heart,
surely it is time
ihklas is old enough to marry
and to go to the training camps.

today, muhammad received a letter
an isreali soldier refused to let his wife pass
and she gave birth at the checkpoint.
the baby died.

it is fall.
ghazi, our imam
led us in prayers during our 11th ramadan here.
His daughter was not allowed to go for heart surgery.

it is winter.
i break the ice on our water jugs.
across the valley
the apartheid wall lengthens its shadow.

in the evening,
the soldiers cut down the olive trees

to warm themselves.


Poemas escritos por KHALIL (LUIS NIEVES)

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