A friend e-mailed me recently asking if I she could use a poem I sent to her a while ago. I read the poem and for just over a day could not remember whose dead I spoke of. The names gave clues, Syria was freshest, but then it could have been Iraq, or Pakistan, Sudan, or Palestine. The poem spoke of bombing and families dying together, the brutality of war. Does it matter I thought which country when it is a poem for all the named and unnamed? Do I need to make a poem for each of the killings. But I have written poems for the dead in each of these countries, poems for the dead at home.
But the names in this poem were specific, created a way of remembering like Nancy Hom’s Circles of Remembrance which with her evocative mandalas continues to celebrate those we have lost and those whose spirits feed us still.
Nancy Hom Oakland Museum 2016 Mandala
I found myself struggling, does the year of this specific tragedy matter since the tragedy has not ended? Will the place take precedent over the people whatever their homeland? Does it matter that these represent actual names of real people and the actual circumstances of their deaths?
I went to my file folder of poems and quickly found the original and edited versions of the poem. Yes it matters that these are Palestinian names. And yes it matters that they are Islamic names, and yes it matters that they are names of specific bloodlines that stretch back millennia. And then again these individual strands of thread are but part of the embroidery cloth of the daily war murders that are a part of our days. And what matters is that we do not forget them, whatever their names, that we do not forget their struggle, and that we realize that it is our struggle too.
The sky is gray today, the air cold and hard. Years ago I wrote a poem on why I wasn’t writing poems at that time. My conclusion was that I didn’t want to write anymore poems about dying children, murdered children, children who were victims of war “but they keep on dying.” And as they keep on dying, I keep on writing
calling the dead –
(names from gaza dead)
Abed held a name meaning worship
and was a year younger than my son
and then the forgiving Samih
who was, perhaps
Abed’s one year old child
Samih the baby, one of seven
of the Jarad family who died together
on a friday of prayer
as a tank rolled through their home
Amjad, most glorious one
was as old as my teen grandson
did Amjad too have a smile
that could light the musty crevices
of a cynic’s crystallized heart
Amjad died on a day
usually spent in play
along with his older brothers
probably holding him close
telling him not to fear
as they stifled
their own trembling
while death splintered
their front door
the names are like bird songs
as i read them out aloud
Salam of peace
Zeinab the fragrant plant
Alaa exalted and full of faith
Ranim at eighteen months
wore a name which was
itself a musical tone
maybe found in the lullaby
Ranim’s father sang
as he rocked her in his arms
that night when they died together
my tears flow salt full and bitter
but i know there is no
purpose in my distant despair
these names tell a story
that lives among the saddest
stories of my family
i go up and down the list
of names and ages
places and dates of the dying
again and again
i read their names out loud
trying to find some solace
some small victory
in all the mayhem
but all i can find
are howls, fury
and irrefutable death
calling of names 2.
reading their names again
i try to braid together families
is she sister or wife
is he uncle or grandfather
are they siblings
or cousins
does it even matter
that a half a world away
is a woman who loves them
and voices their names
as she honors their struggle
and cries for their loss
they had certainly prayed each last day
but was there too a moment of laughter
in the face of wrenching barbarism
did they find courage
nobility
quiet
in the rubble made
of their torn corner of a country
of their rich full lives
did they proudly
raise their voices in song
tell each other stories
of victory seen if not lived