You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian <br />on the first feast day after Ramadan. <br />So, half-and-half and half-and-half. <br />He sells glass. He knows about broken bits, <br />chips. If you love Jesus you can't love <br />anyone else. Says he. <br /> <br />At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa, <br />he's sweeping. The rubbed stones <br />feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar <br />across faces of date-stuffed mamool. <br /> <br />This morning we lit the slim white candles <br />which bend over at the waist by noon. <br />For once the priests weren't fighting <br />in the church for the best spots to stand. <br />As a boy, my father listened to them fight. <br />This is partly why he prays in no language <br />but his own. Why I press my lips <br />to every exception. <br /> <br />A woman opens a window—here and here and here— <br />placing a vase of blue flowers <br />on an orange cloth. I follow her. <br />She is making a soup from what she had left <br />in the bowl, the shriveled garlic and bent bean. <br />She is leaving nothing out. <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by R. Joyce Heon<br /><br />Naomi Shihab Nye<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/half-and-half/
