| Muses Review - Poetry - Winter 2006 |
| Back to: Poetry. |
| Lisa Majaj's poetry: |
| Lisa Majaj from Cyprus |
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| The poem is copyrighted to Lisa Majaj. Poem is published in Muses Review with permission from the author. |
| These Words by Lisa Majaj Source: These Words (2004) p. 12-13 These words are for Rana - eighteen years old, a girl a wife, in Qur village, Tulkarem, West Bank occupied Palestine Rana knew where she lived and had no need for maps, Did she comb her hair each morning with rose water? Line her eyes with kohl? Did she hum quietly to the child in her belly, tremble when artillery pounded the streets, when planes rained fire - cries shaking the air, men bearing another body past her door for burial? These words are for Rana - pregnant, in labor, afraid - and for the child stirring in her womb, rocked on an inland lake of love. Rana sought medicine doctors. Turned back at the checkpoint by soldiers indifferent to fear, or love, or the fierce labor of life, she found only barricades, guns. These words are for her desperate pleas, for the pains coming fast, faster, for the baby that entered the world to breathe, then die. These words are for Rana, taken once more to the checkpoint, once more turned back, arriving at last at the hospital already dead. These words are for the family expecting a birth who bore their daughter and grandchild to the burial place. And these words are for their people whose keening circles the globe and is not heard. These words are for you, and me, for the lives we cherish, the children we nurture, the dailiness we claim, the griefs we prefer not to see. And these words are for our silence. These words are the weight cupped in our palms: the small broken note of freedom. ------------------- Editor's rating: 5 laurels out of 5 laurels. Reader's rating: no rating yet. ------------------ This poem received a special award: 1st Muses Prize - Best War Poem of Year 2004. |
| Rate Lisa Majaj's poem: 5 = Excellent 4 = Very Good 3 = Satisfactory 2 = Lacking depth 1 = Never Mind |
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These Words by Lisa Majaj |
