Naomi är som ni vet bloggens nyårspoet, för hon är mitt ljus och hennes texter värmer i vinternatten. Hon är rösten för vardagsmänniskan, i synnerhet de mest utsatta. Hon har även skrivit barnböcker vilket ger henne ytterligare en stjärna i min bok.
Födelsedagscitat:
"Nu borde livet bli lättare när hjulet rullar utför."
***
"Dikten är ett ägg som ruvas av tiden"
Marie Lundquist (2017)
***
50-listan : Plats 1
 |
| Fuel / Naomi Shihab Nye BOA Editions, 1998 |
Ducks, by Naomi Shihab Nye
We thought of ourselves as people of culture.
How long will it be till others see us that way again?
Iraqi friend
In her first home each book had a light around it.
The voices of distant countries
floated in through open windows,
entering her soup and her mirror.
They slept with her in the same thick bed.
Someday she would go there.
Her voice, among all those voices.
In Iraq a book never had one owner - it had ten.
Lucky books, to be held often
and gently, by so many hands.
Later in American libraries she felt sad
for books no one ever checked out.
She lived in a country house beside a pond
and kept ducks, two male, one female.
She worried over the difficult relations
of triangles. One of the ducks
often seemed depressed.
But not the same one.
During the war between her two countries
she watched the ducks more than usual.
She stayed quiet with the ducks.
Some days they huddled among reeds
or floated together.
She could not call her family in Basra
which had grown farther away than ever
nor could they call her. For nearly a year
she would not know who was alive,
who was dead.
The ducks were building a nest.
***
Hidden, by Naomi Shihab Nye
If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.
If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.
No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.
***
Boy and egg, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar