OF HARVEST AND FLIGHT ... a poem by Deema Shehabi

http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/shehabiof.html

~DEEMA K. SHEHABI~

OF HARVEST AND FLIGHT

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Beneath a wet harvest of stars in a Gaza sky,

my mother tells me how orchards
once hid the breach of fallen oranges,
and how during a glowing night

of beseeching God in prayer,
when the night nets every breath
of every prayer,
my uncle, a child then, took flight

from the roof of the house.
The vigilant earth had softened
just before his body fell to the ground,
but still there's no succumbing to flight's abandon;

our bodies keep falling on mattresses,
piles of them are laid out on living room floors
to sleep multitudes of wedding visitors:
the men in their gowns

taunt roosters until dusk,
while women taunt
with liquid harvest in their eyes,
and night spirits and soldiers

continue to search the house
between midnight and three in the morning.
On the night of my uncle's nuptial,
I watch my mother as she passes

a tray of cigarettes to rows of radiant guests
with a fuschia flower in her hair . . . .
Years before this, I found a photograph
of her sitting on my father's lap,

slender legs swept beneath her,
like willow filaments in river light.
His arm was firm around her waist;
his eyes bristled, as though the years of his youth

were borders holding him back
and waiting to be scattered.
Those were the years when my mother
drew curtains tightly over windows

to shut out the frost world of the Potomac;
she sifted through pieces of news
with her chest hunched over a radio,
as though each piece when found

became a story and within it
a space for holding our endless
debris. But in truth,
it was only 1967, during the war,

three years before I was born . . . .
But tonight, in Gaza beneath the stars,
I turn towards my mother
and ask her how a daughter

can possibly grow beyond
her mother's flight. There's no answer;
instead she leans over me
with unreadable long-ago eyes

and points to the old wall:
the unbolting of our roots there,
beside this bitter lemon tree,
and here was the crumbling

of the house of jasmine
arching over doorways,
the house of roosters
and child-flight legends,

this house of girls
with eyes like simmering seeds.

© by Deema K. Shehabi

~

Deema Shehabi

Flight Over Water

Light in the Orchard

~

Deema K. Shehabi

Portrait of Summer in Bossey Lights Across the Dead Sea Deema K. Shehabi is a writer, editor, and poet. She grew up in the Arab world and attended college in the US, where she received an MA in journalism. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several anthologies and literary journals including the Atlanta Review, The Poetry of Arab Women, Crab Orchard, DMQ Review, Flyway, The Mississippi Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She currently resides in Northern California with her husband and two sons.

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http://imeu.net/news/article005753.shtmlPalestinian-American poet Deema Shehabi.

Palestinian Americans
Deema Shehabi: Poet and editor

To interview Deema Shehabi contact the IMEU at 714-368-0300 or info@imeu.net


Acclaimed Palestinian-American poet and editor Deema Shehabi aspires to offer poetry that is both aesthetically crafted and that tells the Palestinian narrative. "People have a tendency to dehumanize one another," Shehabi says. "The Palestinian experience provides a vastness and a broad context that can reaffirm our human values because it constantly challenges narrowly constructed notions of nationalism, patriotism, and the like."

Shehabi was born in Kuwait in 1970. She came to the United States in 1988 to attend Tufts University, where she received a BA in history and international relations. In 1993, she received an MS in Journalism from Boston University.

Shehabi says her poetry is "inspired by a sense of loss, combined with the tragedy of the Palestinian experience." Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals including The Atlanta Review, Bat City Review, Crab Orchard, The Mississippi Review, Drunken Boat, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and the Kenyon Review. She has published works in anthologies such as The Poetry of Arab Women and Contemporary Arab-American Poetry and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Deema Shehabi has also worked in writing and editing for several book publishers and magazines, including Ulysses Press, Nuclear Times, and most recently, Veggie Life where she was managing editor.

Shehabi's father hails from Jerusalem, and her mother is from Gaza. She has visited both Palestinian cities with her family on numerous occasions. Her earliest memory was the contrast between the sparse landscapes of Kuwait and the "lushness of the orange and lemon groves" that she saw in Gaza when she visited there. "It was heaven," she says.

Deema Shehabi also recalls an experience that took place at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv when she visited at age 9. "When we arrived, I could see my uncle waiting behind the glass on the other side to greet us" she explains. "At the same time I was aware of this intense tension between my mother and the Israeli interrogator." Shehabi says that the two extreme emotions encapsulated in that moment -- the excitement about seeing relatives combined with the palpable hostility between the interrogator and her mother -- left its mark. The experience even informs her writing today.

Currently, Shehabi is working on a new collection of poems and is Vice President for the Radius of Arab-American Writers (RAWI). She plans to establish a contemporary reading series for Arab Americans in the future.

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