“Let’s be the same wound if we must bleed. <br /> Let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy <br /> is ourselves: I am yours, you are mine.” <br /> —Tommy Olofsson, Sweden <br /> <br />I’m not interested in <br />who suffered the most. <br />I’m interested in <br />people getting over it. <br /> <br />Once when my father was a boy <br />a stone hit him on the head. <br />Hair would never grow there. <br />Our fingers found the tender spot <br />and its riddle: the boy who has fallen <br />stands up. A bucket of pears <br />in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home. <br />The pears are not crying. <br />Later his friend who threw the stone <br />says he was aiming at a bird. <br />And my father starts growing wings. <br /> <br />Each carries a tender spot: <br />something our lives forgot to give us. <br />A man builds a house and says, <br />“I am native now.” <br />A woman speaks to a tree in place <br />of her son. And olives come. <br />A child’s poem says, <br />“I don’t like wars, <br />they end up with monuments.” <br />He’s painting a bird with wings <br />wide enough to cover two roofs at once. <br /> <br />Why are we so monumentally slow? <br />Soldiers stalk a pharmacy: <br />big guns, little pills. <br />If you tilt your head just slightly <br />it’s ridiculous. <br /> <br />There’s a place in my brain <br />where hate won’t grow. <br />I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds. <br />Something pokes us as we sleep. <br /> <br />It’s late but everything comes next.<br /><br />Naomi Shihab Nye<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jerusalem-22/
