I could not sleep last night thinking of you, Haas. I miss you, and I think of you and wonder if the nightmares have returned. I think of you and cry and pray for an olive tree to grow in Golan Heights.
Unfortunately Beirut Seizures is out of print. I promised myself I would share one of Haas' poems today. Today, as Beirut lays smoldering, as its citizens are forced underground, forced to suffer, yet again, the destruction of their beloved city.
(Poem after the fold)
The Confirmation of Anger 1982
by Haas Mroue from his book,
Beirut Seizures
Every night
the woman of Sidon
skips the streets
dressed in white shawl
and plastic slippers
with a plastic Fuchsia rose.
Her water broke
when F-16s dropped leaflets
from the sky
leave your homes and go to sea
four children buried
beneath six stories
of concrete, school notebooks
and eggplant she had pickled
only a day before
with green walnuts.
She left to fill buckets
from a broken pipe
the F-16s, the F-16s came
and the wind
hissed
I only went to get some water
she cried
four children
melted
in phosphorous
and walnut shells
in a living room
in the light of one candle
I only went to get some water.
She waits for her husband
to return from somewhere
Djibouti, Somalia
wrapped in banana leaves
and the empty stare of mourning.
How many history books
will skip the summer of 1982:
a woman with still-born
by a water pipe
a plastic bucket
to douse sizzling flesh
of four children:
the confirmation of anger.
She waits for rain,
November rain
to seep through slippers
and her swollen veins
bruised from the pressure
of denial.
She knows what it's like
to be a widow
childless
no wind, no pollen, no country.