By Ramzy Baroud
(To a refugee from Mali)
My hands tremble
But when I held yours
I felt mightier
Than the whisper
Of a passing refugee
At the end of a journey
And the start
Of an infinite world
Of sand
And tears
No water here
No humanity
Just the footprints of
My mother
And yours
Crossing the Sahel
Into Gaza
To a place
Where men have only memories
And women plot their return
To extinction
My eyes dried
As the wind wept
All night
But when I saw yours
I recalled my name
And I was determined
To reach a horizon
Where you and I
Ride the moon
Back to the beginning
Of all dreams
Hold my hand
So that we may try
To reach the last dune
Where my deserts end
And yours
begin.
(Ramzy Baroud, Jan 28, 2013)
Poetry is magnificent. It does not easily pass this magnificence on. If it did the magnificence would not be so. The pregnant ambiguity allows the imagination of the poet and the reader to combine in the most intimate communication of wonder. Is it the nature of humanity to be random in the ultimate?
This intimate world is the greatest human wealth of all and it is sooner than later all we are going to have left. The crass and violent crudity of the West will make sure of this, making me question ” Can I be of their nature?”
But even then the mothers of such as Obama and the man who leads Britain and whose name I forget will love them still.
Accept this please as a tribute to your efforts.
Ramzy, Your poem triggered the daily repeated flashes of my painful experience as a Palestinian living in my endless desert, the Diaspora.
What a beautiful poem:
said what can’t be said
understood what can’t be understood
James, but aren’t we all of the same nature and isn’t that our only hope?
Very touchy……….
Love it. Awesome