Ulysses

Where was I? Oh, yes. The Flood. It was way back in late July or early August 2006 that my family found itself washed up on the banks of the mighty Zacatacas creek-bed. The Arizona monsoon had turned this old town into a river. The mighty, mighty Liffy of my imagination. Good ole James Joyce had a way with words didn't he?

On our way back to this melting town where only the pooches know the proper names, we passed through Ramstein Air Force base in Germany. By that time we had already spent a couple days either on boats or in shelters. I had only slept once since our departure nearly four days before. The story View From 16th is a short masterpiece if anyone is truly interested in the short story form or interested at all in the way butterflies manage to migrate.

In Ramstein, I slept once again. Military families had prepared a magnificent meatloaf for the refugees and I cannot commend their kindness well enough here. If meatloaf defines generosity then they truly made us wealthy, themselves poor and I can never eat another meatloaf again. It would ruin my memory of that delicious thing for all eternity.

Not to mention the sailors aboard the USS Trent. Those fellows worked tirelessly day and night to prepare meals for their boatload of refugees. The USS Trent was meant to carry around 600 troops but for us she opened her doors to more than 1800.

There were babies in bunks, women asleep on helipads and I noticed one sailor reaching down to peel a discarded piece of tissue off the bottom of my daughter's shoe as we were filing by in a long line to get something to eat on the mess deck. I said, "You don't have to do that." He replied that he was just so happy to be of service to someone in distress. A fine older man with a paunch. I wish I could honor him by remembering his name but I can't. I can see him as clearly as I see the young African American air force pilot who walked with me onto the tarmac as we got ready to board a C-130 for the second time in our lives. He shook my hand and asked me what the name of my book was so that he could buy it. He apparently was impressed with some of my views about the Israeli aggression and understood that I dreamed of being an author or a poet or some other recognizable person in this world.

It called to my mind the idea of being famous and how famous I already was for merely being a muslim. I had to wonder about our famous friend LeBron whom we had met somewhere between Beirut and Larnaca. I wondered yet again about the chances of touching the Dalai Lama. I wondered if Nelson Felix LeBron would remember that he met me as I remembered his wonderful line, "If you spin the Leatherman you can travel through time." I contemplated the messengers who had contacted me when I was just a child and as well, the man who had arrived ala Jorge Luis Borges in my flat in Riyadh to tell me about his very own death or maybe he meant my own. That guy knew information that no one could possibly know about me. He knew my deepest fears and those that accompany readers throughout so many strange Borgian tales. That silly bar of soap! The Zohar. The Shield in the lotus-eating world. How the sea looked from the deck of the vessel, turbulent and oily green. I know now. I know all kinds of things and to tell the truth, it hasn't eased the suffering but a bit. Hope is all there is.

These days I wonder so much less. It is all very clear and more certain every day. Allah chooses whom he wills. He chooses Nasrallah to lead the fight against the oppressors in this era, he chooses Bush to lead the oppressors to defeat. He chooses some of us to understand a few details and some of us a great deal more. Allah is the Best Knower after all.

and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. -Joyce

To The Israeli Soldiers Who Shat In My House And Left It

Ah, if only I could be
a dam I'd ask the water
how do you break me
or a rock, you move me
the bottom of the sea
you fill me a cloud
release me, a river
guide me or a storm
begin and end me
a flood. If only
the droughts weren't so long
such frozen lakes
parables of motion
persistent as flies,
thine aid do we seek,
flee then seek again.
The forgotten Jews,
the twelve springs of Abraham,
those Mary tears.
Birth waters preceed every soul.
The lacking planets dry as fists
arranged silently in rows
study it all in dreams,
these illusions are invitations
when moths gather light
among the particles of night.

In Zacatacas the floods
are very old and carry
the mountains away as if
to card seeds from wool,
the vibrations of thunder
asssistants of demise,
incalculable lines of light
choose, they choose
certain walkers and runners
and promise so many
such bitter escapes.
The furthest destinations
where miracles are light weight
passengers as feathery
as seeds, graceful, determined.
They don't look back.
They never return home and know
where they are going -
to that end in another country's grave.
Bint Jubail buries her shops
in mortars and C'naa remembers
the people twice, poor people
wearing plastic slippers,
not well-dressed and familiar with the rain.