poetry lamenting war #14

[truepenny]

No One Thinks of Tegucigalpa


No one thinks of Tegucigalpa, unless you are the man
at the Christmas party who sells weapons to Honduras
and smilingly bets on war. Or you have been there,
you wear the miles of markets, a cascading undergarment
beneath your calm white shirt, the slick black tiles
of the plaza, a girl coming early, little hum and bucket,
to polish them. Near the river, a toothless man kept
parrots and monkeys in his yard. ¿Por que? He said, "Love."

They don't want to hear about Tegucigalpa because it makes
them feel like a catalogue of omissions. Where is it?
Now who? As if Houston were everything, the sun comes up
because commerce exists ... But if you kept driving south,
past Mexico's pointed peaks, the grieving villages of
Guatemala, you would reach the city that climbs hills,
opening its pink-lidded eye while the Peace Monument
draws a quiet breath. A boy stands all day skewering
lean squares of beef till the night hisses on his grill.

Where is it? At the end of the arm, so close I tap the
red roofs with my finger, the basket seller weaves a
crib for my heart. Think of the countries you have never
seen, the cities of those countries, start here, then ask:
How bad is it to dress in a cold room? How small your own
wish for a parcel of children? How remarkably invisible
this tear?

--Naomi Shihab Nye, Yellow Glove. Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Portland, OR: Far Corner-Eighth Mountain Press, 1995

LINKS:
Here's the current local time in Tegucigalpa.

The Academy of American Poets seems to be having some technical difficulties at the moment. But, for when they're back up, here's their page for Naomi Shihab Nye.

Here's a page from the University of Minnesota's Voices from the Gaps project.

Pif Magazine's interview with Nye.

Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American Poet: To Any Would-Be Terrorists.

Here's Bill Moyers's interview with Nye for NOW.

Nye writes a column for Organica.

A beautiful photograph of Nye from the Steven Barclay Agency, an agency for "lectures, readings, workshops, and conferences."

Comments

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

They don't want to hear about Tegucigalpa because it makes
them feel like a catalogue of omissions
(...)
Think of the countries you have never
seen, the cities of those countries, start here, then ask

Oh, indeed.
I don't read enough poetry these days, obviously, as I am always awed (but not shocked), utterly delighted and enchanted when a poem doesn't simply appeal to my senses only but manages to reflect my thoughts and ideas, as vague or subconscious they may have been.

Dropping by to say, once more, that I love your Poetry Lamenting War-- diverse, beautiful, unique, odd, thought-inspiring, haunting...

Thanks, Truepenny.

& :-)