Milkweed
Only at dusk is one swept by the deep
sweet scent of milkweed,
a turbulence
in the evening's crisp air. Scepters,
edging the road in triple rows,
crowned by pink,
minute star-like flowers
linked by invisible rays.
I pull the thick stem, an ancestral
gesture,
freeing hairy filaments
from rain-soaked earth, to bury
in the creek's
moist soil.
Rubbing my sticky fingers, I wonder
what powers lie
in the white bleeding
of broken leaves, the stigmata of purple
veins, cures lost
with old shamans,
before this land was named Michigan.
And I think of Lebanon, the green figs
we grew in the mountains
of Baabdat,
figs picked, children climbing forbidden
fences. At the bottom of each fig,
a white tear
covered the circular scar,
a tear, beading from invisible pores,
sheathing our skin
with transparent gloves.
I hear my mother's voice, an echo
of ancient wisdom,
purification rites:
"Never rub your eyes before washing
or you'll go blind!" Would milkweed
sap heal
sightless eyes, unaware
of star-like flowers
offering their last silk-winged seed?
A swarm of bees milks intangible beads;
I inhale the dizzying
scent, anchoring
myself in increasing darkness. A spark
reveals hidden berries,
the whiteness
of a Daisy, Queen Ann's lace,
fireflies,
springing from nowhere,
greener in a darkened back alley
between three black
trunks, rising motes of flame
in the cool liminal hour,
vision inside vision,
inside me, at the verge of the night,
the wild dance
of heated elytra
everywhere around grass and wildflower,
attentive only to that mysterious,
incoherent language,
emerging from folds
of bark, creased blades of grass,
moisture trapped
in lichen, in humus,
underneath blackened oak leaves.
First published by Sulfur River Review
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
Telling her Story to Stray Dogs
She lay countless nights, her moans muffled by a pillow.
She could see his face that Summer morning, feel his voice bite
into her flesh, a surgeon's scalpel, excising. She recalled
waking from a deep sleep, opening her door to the early,
unannounced messenger, his words, burning like dry
ice. She stood motionless as he turned away, climbing hurriedly
into his Honda. She felt a lightness, a readiness to levitate.
Looking down, she saw herself in shattered glass, concealing
the Venetian red-tiled corridor like snow flakes. Folded
in two, she gathered some fragments, then for hours swept floors
and corners filled with impalpable dust.
She was surprised to hear her heartbeat. "It must have
been my soul," she thought, "disintegrating into feathers of glass
all over the house. It’s flown everywhere, for everyone to see,
for everyone to blow away, broken debris coming out of nowhere."
Weeks after, amianthus-like particles still shone on the sofas,
the afghans, the lace curtains, the oak rocker, the crease of a silk
pillow, the fold of a diphenbachia leaf. Many months later,
sun rays would light insidiously a dark corner, reveal a faceted
web of slivered dust, a glimmer on the edge of a window,
within the braided arm of a wicker chair.
The last one to bed, she'd lie, eyes open. Eating less each
day, she became paler, watched her mother stab the eye of round
with a kitchen knife, saw how she pressed garlic cloves deep
into openings and brought edges together to mend the surface. At
the dinner table no one would know the sealed roast had
been pierced in so many places. Now her wound had healed. In
the long waking hours, she'd hear the doorbell ring, see
his words gather, needles welding into a silver scimitar. She could
replay its swift movement in slow motion, fragment it all night-
long, fingers running over her side, redesigning the leaf's imprint.
She prayed for snow, for snow to cover his footsteps
around her house, around the fig and cherry trees, erasing their
traces for miles in the neighborhood, for snow to smother
and bury their geography of familiar places. And snow fell relentlessly
that Winter, and Spring was late, disconcerted. Snow
covered red-tiled roofs, cars, shrubs, rhododendrons, bird baths,
statues of Manneken Pis, the Virgin of Lourdes, the Virgin
of Guadalupe, even fir trees and hedges. Snow muffled voices
freezing the wind brushing the Lebanese Cedar hills, concealing
old carcasses, broken bones, ruins, the palace of Beit el Habib,
the central square's Martyrs' monument, bazaars, flakes shrouding
laced arcades, façades riddled with lead graffiti, abandoned rubble.
Lulled by the vast whiteness, she no longer yearned for the
change of seasons but wished to dream again. Each morning,
folded in two, she would walk bent, smoothing the scar on her
side as if ironing a shrunken garment. At night, she'd hear a
crisscross, particles sliding against each other with each
move. Slowly, out of her falling eyelids, a silent, wordless presence
rocked her in a bed of rose petals. Soon, lost snow flakes
would melt into dew, avenues smell of lavender and tender
blossoms. She dreamed of roaming the streets, a village fool
telling her story to stray dogs, to leaves in the trees, chasing
the ones flying in the wind.
First published by Knot Magazine
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
Tea at Chez Paul’s
We ate Schtengels at Chez Paul's,
twisted breads sprinkled with coarse salt
clinging to our lips.
We could see the sea enfolding us
through the tall bay windows
of the semi-circular Swiss teahouse.
You described a Phoenician Tale
just for me,
how the mountain slopes
reddened each spring
with Adonis’ blood,
how this delicate flower,
truly and duly Lebanese
has come to be called a red poppy, an anemone,
with all its melodious variations,
alkhushkhash,
un amapola,
un coquelicot,
ed anche un papavero…
We walked through a field scattered
with red poppies bright as when Ishtar
sprinkled nectar
on her beloved’s blood.
Time seemed elastic then,
space infinite.
I wished to bring home a handful of scarlet light,
to keep the softness of its wrinkled petals
alive a while longer.
The moment I cut Adonis’ flower,
hanging like a broken limb, its corolla fell over my hand,
head too heavy with dreams.
No wonder blossoms tremble
on their fragile stem.
Sometimes love is only real when not uprooted.
Isn’t there a geography of every emotion?
not a precious, intricate Carte du Tendre,
but a trail of forgotten footsteps mapping
every heartbeat, every motion?
A stairwell, a car, a booth, a parking lot,
a streetlight, a gateway,
an old-fashioned réverbère,
a Bus Stop or maybe a tree, a tree stump,
a moss-covered path, a pond,
a small creek, a flat stone,
a hill, a porch or even a wooden bench?
Take the poppy, for instance. It will only breathe
and give joy at its birthplace.
I can still feel the small flower melting
into liquid silk in my palm.
I held the red petals to my cheek
like a morning kiss while you kept telling how Ishtar
or as some may say Astarte, often mistaken for Isis,
was truly her Phoenician incarnation,
before she was ever called Aphrodite or Venus.
I remember how you talked and talked
until we both stepped into Ishtar's temple.
First published by Nimrod Literary Journal/Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize Finalist
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
How the Song Turns into a Legend
We all have but one song, spend a lifetime
looking for ways to say it,
as one recites an unending poem,
a chanson de geste,
a canto, or an epic.
What happens then if you whisper it only to yourself,
burying it deeper every day?
Wouldn’t it wilt as petals pressed
between the pages of a book?
And couldn’t a garden die of indifference?
But take any couple, an encounter, turn it into a legend,
make it last... Their story told and retold,
ritualized by repetition,
until their stature grows, their eyes brighten,
until their voice is heard,
their sin forgiven...
Recount tales in tongues, in parables, uttered in public squares,
whispered in corners
in sotto voce,
from mouth to mouth,
hear a mother’s voice warn her children
with a half-smile,
witness puppets parody star-crossed lovers in street fairs,
in jest, in awe,
in ever-changing roles and settings.
Watch words form lines, notes, scripts, scores written in scrolls,
in parchment, in manuscripts folded in folio,
in quarto,
scribbled in notebooks, in recipe books,
in brown paper, engraved in stone, in bronze,
gold or ivory,
transcribed,
transformed,
until only names are left untouched.
When so many variations deafen the original song,
then, and only then,
images retain their spell,
become universal,
art legitimizing what could never endure.
First published by Puerto del Sol
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
Missing Words
We both stared at the illuminated images
of what must have been a rare book. Its pages
seemed to turn on their own, one by one,
following the rhythm of our breath--were we so afraid
to touch its precious leaves?
I noticed faded characters here and there, like
distant memories, missing lines rubbed away by fingers
or written in invisible ink, perhaps words never said,
unable to fall in proper order--could the writer or scribe
have wished to light a match, imagined its fire racing along the
elongated curves of the phrase, erasing even the traces
of his thought?
Then came an empty page, papyrus-like, arresting,
intimidating the one about to stamp it with the colors
of life--what ever happened to this page, I wondered,
realizing you were gone
First published by Puerto del Sol
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. She has authored four poetry collections, most recently, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? winner of the 2024 International Poetry Book Awards, and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Awards and the USA Best Book Awards; The Taste of the Earth, winner of the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. A twenty-five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award, her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. https://www.hedyhabra.com/
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