BY NOEME GRACE C. TABOR-FARJANI
The mountain beckons
The mountain beckons so does this task at hand, the work waiting and waiting. The mountain is not far to behold but it calls, so leave my slippers and staff, and stare at the fire that turns air into tablets. I pray, please turn my breathing into ink.
I only feel the malty mint, the days gone by are back. The barefoot hours, stage the dance of trees in front of me. And I think: they are still there, the earth’s still here.
There are no memories of wind, but there is one that blows desire, wrapped in fresh silence. Almost a fulfillment of longing of some unknown home, or romance, or power. Vague as the clouds, gray and shapeless, moving into uncertain spaces, telling no stories but whispers the quiet moments.
I no more count the hours for nameless acts. It’s just air blowing cold. It’s just rain that looks like it will fall. It’s just what they call a gloomy day, perfect for a song and maybe more of the wonder of the eternal now.
In stillness, solitude, and surrender, all of earth will sing with my desire.
The road hides from a busy highway
The road hides from a busy highway. Those who look not for magic is lost. Trees lined, bowing to majestic dusty pathway. Those who look not for magic won’t see the silver and gold in the cobblestones. The disappearing grass, playing hide and seek with the skies.
This season, we made fires from branches who ask to make love with earth. Those who seek not magic won’t hear the stories of the clouds. Surrounded by the sea, the sky, the mountains. I sit by the wall and sing my songs until Faith cascades down to the stillness of sand, letting go of waves.
Those who seek no magic won’t ever be still, won’t dance...
See the sun, the sky, the sand, the sea, the breeze, the trees. Only they know our spells, the secret of our days. The roof is a bed the stars shelter many dreams.
Those who look not for magic is lost.
The requiem
I.
Steady the hand as not to drip the soup from that spoon: it has battled long enough in the wild, held a sword, a stone, an arrow, a knife. Now it is time to be a wife.
Soothe the trembling that wants to travel through your skin. To kill is not a sin.
Steady the hands that are unsure. If it wants more of a fill: here’s some meat, roasted well some seconds for some sweets? Does he really want to eat?
Steady the tremors from your hands as they run to your heart. The images of battles on your tables: Kitchen where spices scatter, the meals eaten by whiners, the cluttered desk, the empty screen. Maybe you let an enemy in?
Steady the thoughts and capture them. You do not divide to rule and win. You serve, you love, you write. You feed those with trembling hands. You clean the cluttered tables. You fold the fitted sheets. You fill the blank white sheets.
I tell him, let’s kill this. To kill is not a sin.
II.
When their visit wake you up
at 4, you barely have enough sleep.
They gear you up for a battle
that is not yours
and you try not to engage.
There you are with an armor
that drags you down,
a shield you can barely lift.
And the questions come
like a colony of red ants,
a swarm of wasps in your heart.
What do they call them?
●
The food is ready,
My feet are up on the porch bench
We are waiting for Iftar.
The past 29 nights
are dizzying movements
in the kitchen.
But my body is not tired.
The summer rains
are a miracle tied to the curse
of the season.
I watch the birds play
under the drizzle,
filtered by dusk.
I thought birds hide
for cover when it rains.
Twilight nears.
The earth seem content
with the caress of showers.
I bath myself in the breath
of the sky and trees.
A long time has passed,
Have I been missed
By these creatures of mist.
The Earth quietly blankets
herself, settling
in the bed of night.
The way I embrace a faith
foreign from mine.
Iftar is here.
Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani has authored Letters from Libya, a chapbook of short memoirs about her family's escape from the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014. Her works have recently appeared in Your Dream Journal and Global Poemic and forthcoming in Fahmidan Journal and Rogue Agent. In 2018, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation in creative writing pedagogy. In between gardening and yoga, she teaches literature and humanities at the high school level in the Philippines. She is currently working on a chapbook of poems on spirituality and the body.