The Sweet Arab, the Generous Arab
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Since no one else is mentioning you enough
The Arab who extends his hand.
The Arab who will not let you pass
his tiny shop without a welcoming word.
The refugee inviting us in for a Coke.
Clean glasses on a table in a ramshackle hut.
Those who don't drink Coke would drink it now.
We drink from the silver flask of hospitality.
We drink and you bow your head. 

Please forgive everyone who has not honored your name.

You who would not kill a mouse, a bird.
Who feels sad sometimes even cracking an egg.
Who places two stones on top of one another
for a monument. Who packed the pieces,
carried them to a new corner. For whom the words
rubble and blast are constants. Who never wanted
those words. To be able to say,
this is a day and I live in it safely,
with those I love, was all. Who has been hurt
but never hurt in return. Fathers and grandmothers,
uncles, the little lost cousin who wanted only
to see a Ferris wheel in his lifetime, ride it
high into the air. And all the gaping days
they bought no tickets
for spinning them around. 

From You & Yours (BOA Editions, 2005) by
Naomi Shihab Nye

 

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Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1952, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. She received her B.A. from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she still resides with her family. She is the author of numerous books of poems, including 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), Fuel (1998), Red Suitcase (1994), and Hugging the Jukebox (1982). She has twice traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency promoting international goodwill through the arts. Nye has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, and the International Poetry Forum. Her poems and short stories have appeared in various journals and reviews throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle and Far East. Nye has also written books for children and has edited several anthologies of prose. (Source: www.poets.org)
Her poem is reproduced here with permission.

She is represented by
The Steven Barclay Agency
12 Western Avenue, Petaluma, CA, 94952
707-773-0654
Sara Bixler, sara@barclayagency.com

 

 

 

 

Naomi Shihab Nye