Skip to main content

Root and branch

A branch cut off from its tree;
that's how she felt, my mom.

Now I'm back to the tree
- the trunk, the roots -
but all I can do
is look longingly at that cut-off branch.

(December 2009)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To school on a winter morning

I love the walks to school on winter mornings. The crisp weather, the leisurely stride, the friendly banter between my daughters and their cousin. Sometimes they link arms with her—not with each other, to be sure—and sometimes they take quick steps, trying to outpace each other. The puffy black jacket I bought a decade ago on another continent serves me well. Today, grey clouds loom above, but so far there is no rain. (It doesn’t take long for the streets to fill with water when it does rain, and then the walk turns into a delicate crisscrossing dance.) We’re approaching the school gate now. “Anyone want to hug and kiss me in public?” I quip. The girls politely decline, but they do say salam and “I love you.” I stand until they pass through the doors; both of them look at me and wave. I turn back, and soon I’m crossing a one-way road; I live in Egypt, so I look both ways. My way back is contemplative. I study all the greenery on my path—trees and bushes of various shapes and sizes. Som...

The writer in me

The writer in me, nurtured at an early age but silenced in its prime by country-hopping, teaching, and babies —an occasional gasp for air its only reprieve from slow suffocation— longs to speak again. I've so much to say, it tells me, but you haven't been listening. Don't hold me back, it says by shopping, cooking, and lame excuses. Let me go, it says; let me speak. Ya Allah, strengthen my voice. (July 2018)

Push back

It's always right there, just around the corner, at your fingertips. A simple tap or click opens it up, and it's ready to swallow you up. Push it back—those floodgates bursting with everything evil and ugly. Push back the paralysis and the despair. We feel a strange obligation towards the despair. We call it being connected, being in-the-know. We faithfully wring our hands at each calamity, scattering broken hearts and crying faces before scrolling past. And then—we're left more disconnected than ever. Emptier than ever. More confused than ever. It's a strange reality that pelts us with images without context. Small, ugly pieces of a larger picture we cannot see. And so, we see the pain, but not the Plan. We see suffering and destruction, but not Mercy, not Love, not Wisdom. We are so focused on the hideous pieces that we forget to look beyond them. Don't be the ostrich; no. But why seek out what will cause you despair? Why jump into a place with no air and then won...