duel, duet

Hodo Mohamed

to the qurac tree who stretches its limbs, standing still to the wind of dead voices, arguments of the living its forgotten tune– oh, how long silence reigned.

its branches hug, strangle, count the blessings and holes dug, while feet dig in, rooted– it cannot stand the hush, the tiptoe–

do not be afraid to snap the twigs, to disturb the quiet.

why do you pause under these shadows, drag the war and set it down here– camels and tanks, bones and bullets, find their place, under the qurac trees’ shade, caravans unable to carry dead weight.

the roots have not let go, despite the distance of seas, the notes of its’ remembrance burrow in, lift, and swing, calling out for resolution, a finality, the silence deafening, a forgotten piece of my soul left amongst the many, the Qurac tree, listening,

“I cannot explain it all, but I have sat here waiting to reconcile with the two halves of me.”

I must be emitting at a frequency that others cannot understand. why do you furrow your eyebrows—

today, the letter of the day was h and I smiled, my mom teaches me the buraanbur, delighted by the drums, happy as my feet transverse realities, dancing alone to two different beats, stumbling and laughing throughout in a daze, a reckoning– a murmur, a call, a remembrance– although, I do not understand if anyone has gotten lost, found their way, and tuned into this channel;

I keep losing the connection, shoved in an apartment, a status report in an overwhelming static of death: an evening news report, five dishes long, surely, is not enough. i wander aimlessly through a land of overturned clothes, an overflowing sink, my parents wandered, questioned, worried, threatened, thrown to other lands– and I have found myself here, growing in soil that is far from a home, far from the footsteps of my ancestors, far from the sounds heard by my parents, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents–

“and i am afraid to disturb this quiet, to sit under the shade, where my forefathers’ sat, and converse with the other, the confused, the shuttered-and-closed– myself.

these roots take long to grow, to uproot– i cannot– to sing, to stand in silence, sitting in remembrance of two halves that have both danced, recited poetry, attempted to shout above the howling winds– my grandfather’s handwriting looks like my own– a duel, duet– in the shadows of a meeting place i have not fully known.