Claire's September Poem

Hi all! 

Hope you and yours are out of the path of Florence! Looking forward to your September poems!

RETURN

Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi was released from an Israeli prison on July 29, 2018, after serving an eight-month sentence for slapping an IDF soldier. She had just learned that a soldier had shot her 15-year-old cousin in his mouth.

released from prison
into the wider captivity

on a blue and white day

she is swept

into the embraces
into the breezes of Nabi Salih

at the makeshift press conference:

bristling microphones
and IDF rifle barrels
(neither intimidate her)
take aim at her mouth

where the stories of her people live

she sits planted among the throng

with the patience of Jerusalem

unmovable as its shimmering dome

while her golden hair

the entire wheat field of it
caresses her father’s shoulder

there is resistance in the very
breezes of Nabi Salih

and Ahed’s hair waves and whips

now more recognizable

than the Palestinian flag

in every bold strand a demand

and the birthright

to live unleashed

her defiant curls
pale skin
reminiscent of another teenager

he, freed from a block

of veined white marble

his right hand cradled the fatal rock

hers opened flat in a slap

they were the same age
rooted in these same stone-strewn hills

when they confronted giants.

Vasiliki's September poem

Hi Everyone! Miss seeing your work here! Hope the rainclouds have parted where you are, and you're having a good start to the fall season.

Tuscan

after centuries of raising
things out of rot,
wine and raisins

fraught promises, razed
soil and more work

what rage was wrought
of these sought promises?

to return to the soil
after centuries

what was sought and bought
left to rot

stunned wages--
amidst the wilds and thistles
of the Tuscan hills

epistles whose lines are written still

while the very ground unwinding
by the windmill

and still and still

that with each drop, we shall return to the soil
amended