Poem of the Week

Taha Muhammad Ali (1931–2011) was born in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya, destroyed during the 1948 war. The owner of a souvenir shop in Nazareth, he was also the author of five books of poetry in Arabic and of So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005. His biography, by Adina Hoffman, is entitled My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century.

Photograph by Nina Subin.

Meeting at an Airport

by Taha Muhammad Ali

You asked me once,
on our way back
from the midmorning
trip to the spring:
“What do you hate,
and who do you love?”

And I answered,
from behind the eyelashes
of my surprise,
my blood rushing
like the shadow
cast by a cloud of starlings:
“I hate departure . . .
I love the spring
and the path to the spring,
and I worship the middle
hours of morning.”
And you laughed . . .
and the almond tree blossomed
and the thicket grew loud with nightingales.
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