My Father’s House is a Terrorist Target
By Elmaz AbiNader
Two For Hayan:
The subject line of an email
The subject line of my shortness of breath
The subject line of the phone call
to my own father
who stands in the sun and lifts his head toward the sky
listening
Your father slows his car
on the highway from Beirut
tea and anise cookies in a cupboard
a few miles away, a few miles away
where the beds are empty, the sofa
losing the impression of his body,
the kitchen table with a bowl of apricots
your father slows the car a few miles
away—his eyes glaze over at the night
in front of him, at the stars falling
into the ends of the earth the horizon
My father—in high dry grass in Maryland
leaves the television talking behind him
loud enough the neighbors all hear what
what he doesn’t, lets the phone ring
recognizing the sorrowful notes of his children
asking about home his brothers their families
twists buttons off his shirt counting them
like pennies and the years he left Lebanon
behind stars falling into the ends
of the earth the horizon
Your father taking his son and wife home
slows his car but does not watch for long
It is routine to turn around hope for Beirut
damage will be measured tomorrow
when they return if they can
My father alone in the yard implores
his mother and my mother
as the fireflies rise up and orbit
around his head – knowing that he cannot return
You are not the son sitting in the back of the car
reaching a hand forward as the city burns
I am not the daughter pulling my father back
into the house as he whispers the air
We both sit still our arms covering our heads
a kind of prayer and protection from memory
and anger and shortness of breath. You write
the subject line, my father’s house is a terrorist
target and I want to answer each word of that line
breathe deep into the dust and disaster, but cannot – slow down a few miles away, gaze outside the glass
and find myself stuck. I cannot go beyond my father’s.
Wow. Thank you for posting that.
Poetry has never been my strong suit, but I have no idea what this means. Beirut is being attacked by terrorists?
See this, Who Is Samir Kuntar?
Perspectives, you know?
I still dont think Israel has the right to kill civilians. Lebannon did not invade them, they invaded (bombed) it.
But then again I read a lot of lebannonese blogs as a famous Irish blog is of an Irish person living (well till yesterday) in lebannon.
Maybe its just because i know the storys, and hear of peoples neighbours getting killed. Little children and old people.
Sigmund, I read the post that you linked to, but I fail to see how Samir Kuntar factors in–were all of the 200 civilians who were killed in Lebanon followers or supporters of Samir Kuntar? Palestine has been disproportionately responding to Israel’s infractions for years, and it’s exactly the kind of disproportionate response in Lebanon that will make peace in this part of the world impossible.
It’s terrific, very poignant. Thanks.
Jenny, to what infractions are you referring?
Mer, are Israeli civilians fair targets? How many times do you suppose Hizbollah or Hamas have dropped leaflets warning non combatants to leave the area?
Is that a response to the poem, or…? Because perhaps I misread it, but it didn’t strike me as a defense of Samir Kuntar.