Aching clay
by Iqbal Tamimi
for Ismael Shammout
I bridge two points with hesitation
It’s a step back
The shoulders of memories
That used to jostle me in a crowd
Evade me
I slip in the bosom of surprise
Your eyes undressed
Exposing … silent cries
You were panicking
Frightened of shaking my hand
That is wet
With a culture of emergency
And signals you do not understand
I bear the pains of clay
You knead the sand
I am the bread of the strangers
You are my homeland of olive and palm trees
The groves I return to when I’m cold
Let’s hide our poem
In the evening’s silk
Tonight we will be a field
Until the trees yawn wearing their birds
As daylight returns from its night out
We have voiced
All the hopes of the faithful
Scaffolding our souls
Still we fear frequent defeats
You are a meteorite
Chased to earth while I sleep
and I am a tempest battering the streets
Our pulses give us away
Two poles you and I
Though my night
Adores perfuming the sleeves of your daylight.
The painting, “Thirst on the Way,” is by the great Palestinian artist Ismael Shammout. His family was forced to flee from Palestine in 1948 during the Nakba (Arabic for “Catastrophe”) after being attacked by Jews. They ended up refugees in Khan Yonis in Gaza Strip. On their way to Gaza his little brother Tawfeeq died of thirst, so he painted this wonderful, painful work of art in the memory of his brother.
