Two Countries Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

Two Countries

Rating: 4.2


Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Kody Dibble 18 February 2015

I really love this. This is like...the moon against the sun, or the rain against the lightening... this is like form and unform, all twisting and seething inside us all.

3 0 Reply
John Richter 18 February 2015

Life changes so often - age can cause memories to become so foreign - that perhaps we view ourselves as vacant skin then - or now....Excellent write - but must be true to my own self by saying that the nonsense words do not appeal to me.... a hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope. I don't understand that reference at all and it so takes away from an otherwise beautifully written poem..... The passion for poetry is innate - but good poetry only comes from the honest critical eyes of others.

0 1 Reply
Anne Ferguson 28 September 2004

A poem brimful of hope

1 0 Reply
Godfrey Morris 18 February 2015

Beautiful poem of inspiration

0 0 Reply
Akhtar Jawad 18 February 2015

A nice poem......................................

0 0 Reply
Henry Tong 27 May 2018

Extending souls connect with each other. The society bonds more cohesively when the lengths of souls become not the barriers but bridges of communication.

1 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 05 September 2016

People go places! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

0 0 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 03 July 2016

people goes places larger than themselves. Thoughtful inference drawn. Thanks for sharing it here.10 points.

0 0 Reply
Kody Dibble 18 February 2015

I really love this. This is like...the moon against the sun, or the rain against the lightening... this is like form and unform, all twisting and seething inside us all.

0 0 Reply
Kody Dibble 18 February 2015

I really love this. This is like...the moon against the sun, or the rain against the lightening... this is like form and unform, all twisting and seething inside us all.

0 0 Reply
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Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye

St. Louis, Missouri
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