For My Mother on her 60th Birthday<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
I am putting together a parcel to send to my mother,
\na bilingual volume of poetry, poems translated from the Arabic.<\/p>\n
I read the poems in English, pausing
\nto lift words in Arabic and copy them in my notebook.
\nMy innocent wide-eyed script. I don’t make a dash
\nto represent a pair of eyes,
\nor forgo luxurious curves, like someone fluent might.
\nEarnest child, setting out each word to sea,
\nreleasing the palms with the blessing of heat, to take flight.<\/p>\n
I cannot chart my mother’s spine, whether the book
\nis a paperweight, pretend-chamber of colored sand
\nor will she ingest the Arabic like liquid,
\nand veer to the translation, only to hear a small hum inside her:
\nSky, brain, heart.<\/p>\n
My ink traces your silhouette.<\/p>\n
Here is an unknowable space, this margin between mine and yours.
\nIn the spine, I cast a river over despair, a path in which all eyes must pass.
\nVerdant.<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
This is just an entrance.<\/p>\n
The Butoh master offers, “I speak baby English. Enjoy.”
\nWe move while words are slowly spoken.<\/p>\n
Previous generations are summoned.<\/p>\n
The accent of my parents used to make me cringe
\nbut this Japanese man has rinsed English into something bald, phosphorescent.<\/p>\n
Mother, let’s find this flower through your body.
\nFlower never sinking, the Butoh master
\nrecites over and over,
\nas we circle around the room, invisible
\ncenter.<\/p>\n
I am trying to lift it
\nto become the girl who cannot see
\nbut dances to the music.
\nA line has been whispered from
\nthe center of my head
\nto the ceiling.<\/p>\n
Now the body crumpling, seething.<\/p>\n
3.<\/p>\n
I reach long for the tender symphony. “And in the evening light they started to dance.”<\/p>\n
At your son\u2019s wedding, your body leapt up, wooden.
\nNo buoyant whoosh inside, like a loosening, after many prostrations.<\/p>\n
So here: 4.<\/p>\n Mother, think about the legendary songstress,<\/p>\n vocal cords so Feet, arms, belly, yield to reddened.<\/p>\n Most of all, we long for touch. Who has congregated in this room? <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Samar Abulhassan<\/a> earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Colorado State University in 2001. She teaches<\/a> for Writers in the Schools,<\/a> a program of Seattle Arts and Lectures, and the Richard Hugo House.<\/a> She has published three chapbooks,<\/a> and lives in Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For My Mother on her 60th Birthday 1. I am putting together a parcel to send to my mother, a bilingual volume of poetry, poems translated from the Arabic. I read the poems in English, pausing to lift words in … Continue reading
\nNow that the museum guards have gone home, slip inside
\nthis hypnotic light show.
\nThe sea roars at your feet.
\nThe page is soaked with glittering sea dragons murmuring
\nprivate.
\n<\/em>Dance on into the night.<\/p>\n
\nstrong she had to stand
\nseveral feet away from the microphone.<\/p>\n
\nI am listening for the wider stance.
\nTake, for example, gesture.<\/em> Your word for it much more sensual,
\na true beginning. A long sigh and whisper together.
\nTumble,
\nA word learned by the body.<\/p>\n