Also the House

Near the camp was a river and in our house were absentees and hands that will one day wake us in vain I had just turned seven while he was sitting in the shade ironing his clothes the blue jacket sagging over his shoulders I paid no attention to the road or the three steps and didn't notice the carpet I don't remember who was it that said to me or to another "When you grow up poetry will become your house" The dust that eats the memories always distances those folks yet their chairs appear from afar, from behind the hills and over the houses, to hang in an air of summer and holm oak, those shaded chairs that reach the heart on shoulders topped with five flowers Which flowers are speech which flowers are silence? And I can't remember whether it was my uncle who stood at the door, whether we had palm and lotus trees in our house in Karameh, whether my mother who gave birth to me on the shelf was folding our clothes behind our father's back so he could sleep The watchdogs used to cry from the heat, and poetry, Husseini of Jerusalem, and Khidr the mystic were all in our house as was my uncle who came from a pond within Hebron's walls Twenty years would pass before a photo could tell us we have grown older and that's that My father used to discompose his friends with his days, and women with the thread of seduction in his voice as he would sprinkle chatter in their rivers while walking about here or there with a lilt, he'd let his days fall off him and let others gather them as he walked on gold that came only for him And I can't remember: in our courtyard there were holm oaks, a fountain, a tiled floor by a huge door, we were confused and in a hurry The closet that faced us in the second room had a mirror the mirror we now seek And my father was standing alone in the hall that led the stairs to the roof thanking his days or preparing for Wednesday's nap or Thursday's morning as he left, among the things he'd leave, the water can full of water while around his chairs our Saturdays rose My father didn't want too much from life: a house, five boys who don't mess with his papers, which were already chaos, and two girls so that braids could float all around the house