The Wanderer (For Mahmoud Darwish and Emilio Ortega Aldrich)

I.
A wanderer stood still
For once
And gazed at the olives dangling from the branches
Admired the roots of their elders
And recalled how to their progeny they would write
Sermons, speeches, and manifestos
Solidifying the creed
A deliberate gift for every child
Of the uprooted pedigree

And beneath the soot of the family
The wanderer upended the tree
Brushed aside branches
And in their absence marked
The place of the forgotten leaves
Had he looked around for another soul
Together they would point, look, and see
And feel around for the wretched earth
Unearthing from the refuge
What it means to become human
To be free

He sat down long enough
To write a song
Of hopeful longing
And hoped to recognize a beard
Or to sing along with a laughter that comes
Not a month too soon after
The most difficult of years
And the howls of jackals
Split the moon into
Two
So that when he looked up
Huddled in the warmth, solemnly
He prayed that it would stay the same
Before it finally broke
Into three



II.
I stood
Apart from the rest of the town
To catch the wanderer’s solemn gaze
And when our eyes met I
Looked away
Only to witness my roof bleed from the glow of the sun



III.
Somehow it became clear
That I was not allowed to cry
So as the procession marched forward
I blinked dust
And drank my anger

My roof still ablaze
Reminded me of him
And of the Walls that stood still among us
Their paths paved,
Cutting deep between rows of signifiers
Casting aside the memory and significance
Of the way the birds flew
And how he remembered how they flew

He remembers still
The way the trees and their children
Sewed a home made of shade for the
Droplets and the olives to mingle by the roots
And the ovaries of others
Rolled gently, listlessly and unbounded
Their spirit settled in the very same shade

Bare and barren this season
So that even as they are torn
Mother from child
Brother from sister
They betray the faintest sense of warmth
As if life could not be torn from them
No matter how hard the machines force their tears

And amongst the whispers of the bulldozers
Lay the whimpers of the droplets
Forever longing for the companionship
Of the olives
And the listless breeze through the open window
Dries the drips of blood
That have leaked through the roof
Into the wanderer’s living room
To remind him of me