Naomi Shihab Nye Poems

Hit Title Date Added
1.
Hidden

If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
...

2.
Blood

"A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,"
my father would say. And he'd prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.
...

3.
Making A Fist

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
...

4.
Two Countries

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,
...

5.
Streets

A man leaves the world
and the streets he lived on
grow a little shorter.
...

6.
Half-And-Half

You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian
on the first feast day after Ramadan.
So, half-and-half and half-and-half.
He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
...

7.
Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting...

A small striped sleeve in her lap,
navy and white,
needles carefully whipping in yarn
from two sides.
...

8.
Famous

The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
...

9.
Hugging The Jukebox

On an island the soft hue of memory,
moss green, kerosene yellow, drifting, mingling
in the Caribbean Sea,
a six-year-old named Alfred
...

10.
Burning The Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
...

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