NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
I could be one when I grew up.
Hovering, so watchful outside
government buildings, black T-shirts,
black jackets and scarves and gowns—
till then I am a girl in stripes.
They hold a belief—we could all
get along—Arabs, Jews, Swedes,
people with candles, or without.
Even if taunted or hit by stones,
rubber bullets,
we would keep watching,
No Violence!
No War! Trying to be more like
the peaceful village oasis,
Wahat al-Salaam, Nevi Shalom—
half-and-half everything,
school administrators, village counselors,
grocers, gardeners, kids, founded by
a Christian Brother,
why couldn’t all villages be like that?
What is wrong with us?
I flip the pages of the tattered Benetton catalogue
my friend’s mother still keeps in a drawer—
from before we were born,
Arabs and Jews as true friends
on every page, real people
telling their stories, you could not tell which
is which—aren’t there more?
Surely there are more. Red plastic chairs
sitting outside stone and stucco houses,
waiting for us. Waiting for us to sit together.
A project called UNHATE vs. guns.
Which would you choose?
But look how many guns!
Who did this to us?
Money? Guilt?
People in other countries did this to us?
Some people carrying guns look 12 years old.
My father always told me beware of righteousness.
If you are too right, everyone else is wrong.
Illegal settlements creep up the hills at night
erasing our old villages. Boxy white houses
with red roofs marching toward
our old stone terraces. Would you like that?
Americans, would you?
Women in Black don’t carry brooms
but I want them to sweep away our pain.
Here by the hills where angels once appeared,
my mother heard of a journalist who answered
How to solve this dilemma?
by saying, Put everything in the hands of women!
Women in black, women in white.
The men had their chance and failed.
Sure, a few women like Golda
said Palestinians didn’t exist—
she must have had bad eyesight.
So many voices without a chance yet.
Mine, for example.
It is our turn now.