by Carolyn Martin
With thanks to Yasser Abu Rida
 |
| Maria |
From inside a desert tent––how I do not know––
he posts comments on my Facebook page.
“Lovely”: the Easter lilies bursting in my yard.
“Always creative”: his response to my latest poetry.
While I sit in the luxury of blossoms and words,
he messages me Khuza’a, his village, is gone.
What’s left: a wife, three kids, and the courage to survive.
“Endless displacements”: he calls his current address
and “Like zombies,” he says, “who don’t look
left or right, people run toward flour trucks.”
Famine weakens hope.
Yet, he asks me to celebrate Maria’s birthday.
“Two,” he wrote, “and she has never seen
anything beautiful in this world.”
I ask him to give her a kiss and show her
that Easter lilies exist somewhere
on this tattered Earth.
he posts comments on my Facebook page.
“Lovely”: the Easter lilies bursting in my yard.
“Always creative”: his response to my latest poetry.
While I sit in the luxury of blossoms and words,
he messages me Khuza’a, his village, is gone.
What’s left: a wife, three kids, and the courage to survive.
“Endless displacements”: he calls his current address
and “Like zombies,” he says, “who don’t look
left or right, people run toward flour trucks.”
Famine weakens hope.
Yet, he asks me to celebrate Maria’s birthday.
“Two,” he wrote, “and she has never seen
anything beautiful in this world.”
I ask him to give her a kiss and show her
that Easter lilies exist somewhere
on this tattered Earth.
Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, where she gardens, writes, and plays with creative friends. Her poems have appeared in more than 200 publications around the world.
