Silence

We drive to the park for our weekend walk. You, me and our angry

complaining silence                                 superglued to us tight. Shut.

I turn the seams of my thoughts inside out

can’t find any traces of the us we’ve practiced all these years.

So, I turn the radio on—for company. Noise.

When the war ends,
we will cry
We will cry
but we will
then start painting
life, oranges, nature and laughter.

On the rubberized path, silence

chatters, shatters melodies

birdsong—the neem is shedding…crunch, brown, static.

My thighs rub songs, syllables, sighs.

When the war ends,
we will cry
We will cry
but we will
then start painting
life, oranges, nature and laughter.

I imagine what it’s like to cry

but fail to feel how release feels, flows, forgives.

What will remain, retain of you us me this world our love when we peel away our silences?

Will we singe cringe blame pain swallowed whole, dissolve unresolved?

Or look at our raw nakedness as a sign of healing? A rediscovery?

Notes:

The lines in italics on the right-hand side are from a news story on Al Jazeera about the Palestinian museum in Ramallah (8^th February 2024).

In his interview, Mohammed Al- Samhouri (Palestinian artist) said: “We will cry but we will then start painting life, oranges, nature and laughter.”