Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
-Pamela Vaull Starr
El-Ardahnie
There are times when, waking up in the
Middle of the night to the sound of water
Pulsing like blood through veins in the sheet-thin
Walls that surround me, I wish I was still in Jordan,
Lying on a limestone balcony, watching the sky dye itself from
Blue to pink and listening to the Ad�aam calling the faithful
Into the mosques; tiled and enameled gems glowing
Amongst collapsing refugee camps and shantytowns.
And when I peer out of my whitewashed window,
Set unrelentingly above the bleak and stony landscape
Of St. John�s- free, peaceful, gray St. John�s-
Rain shattering against the stained-glass panes,
All I see is how much greener the grass is
On the other continent- to the extent that
There is any of that delicate shrubbery.
Whenever I leave my other home, I always wish
I could steal the sunset from the sand. Or rather
I wish I were the desert; loved by those who
Understood it; beautiful in my own terrible way.
Uncontrollable, destructive to those who tried to tame me.
There is something to be said about the feeling of
Walking barefoot through muddy gardens, the
Ground baking beneath my callused feet.
The sun scorching at my uncovered skin, trying to
Turn it from honey to almond as I sit in towering gazebos.
And I embrace everything as if it were new-
The bent olive trees, gnarled away from the screaming
Sun, the stunning perspectives of deep valleys
Cooking beneath cloudless skies, the colorful people,
Surprisingly worldly, who laugh and tell my about how
They attended University in North America, France,
Russia, Pakistan. And who I always struggle to
Answer with, It feels good to be home, right?
No, I confess, I don�t always tell the truth.
How can I admit my disgust at repression and destitution?
And what do I do, when those olive trees are being torn
Down, and those striking views show impoverished villages,
Clinging to the coat-tails of their monarch, and those colorful
People are depressed and repressed by bankrupt and
Corrupt leaders, and starving Jordan isn�t anymore home
Than sultry St. John�s? Is it alright to be a vagabond of spirit?
Perhaps the maids- who stole forth from their stilted houses scattered
Within the turquoise Pacific to support their struggling families-
Have more in common with me than I have with my own blood.
Sometimes I would sit on the slippery tiled driveway with my nephew,
The leggy Asian girl beside me, a smile like a knife on
Her dark face, a sigh breaking the silence thick
As syrup between us, as the moon drags itself into the
Star-riddled sky. She had always been a free spirit, Taita
Muttered blackly over Turkish coffee that smelled of mud that morning,
Her brown eyes filling my own with questions and suspicions.
And, like the taste of rain in a parched wasteland, I realized that a
Sri Lankin servant knew me more than I did
Sometimes I still wonder whether she
Understood me to the extent that I understand her-
Did she know how much I loved who I was?
That I never wished to be any other human, even at the
Height of my despair? Did she know that, when dragged
Into a Persian restaurant by a would-be suitor,
That I would be writing these lines on a napkin in red pen?
Wasting my time on a poem not, for once
About politics, but about the deeper sense of this dry place;
The sense captured in the grin of a beautiful boy sitting
Across from me, who, like my country, both over- and under-rated;
A place I am both comfortable with and awkward in the presence of.
The place of my infinite public scorn and equally limitless secret devotion.
-by Krajki
