Poet of the Week - Naomi Shihab Nye

Half-and-Half
Naomi Shihab Nye

You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian
on the first feast after Ramadan.
So, half-and-half and half-and-half.
He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
chips. If you love Jesus you can't love
anyone else. Says he.
At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa
he's sweeping. The rubbed stones
feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar
across faces of date-stuffed mamool.
This morning we lit the slim candles
which bend over at the waist by noon.
For once the priests weren't fighting
in church for the best spots to stand.
As a boy, my father listened to them fight.
This is partly why he prays in no language
but his own. Why I press my lips
to every exception.
A woman opens a window – here and here
and here –
placing a vase of blue flowers
on an orange cloth. I follow her.
She is making soup from what she had left
in the bowl, the shriveled garlic and bent bean.
She is leaving nothing out.

("Half-and-Half" copyright @1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted from "Fuel," by Naomi Shihab Nye.)

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Read Naomi Shihab Nye's The Wreath that Eats Two Ice Cubes.