I love poetry. If I had my way there would be no armies, only poetry academies. Our currency would be love letters, songs of sixpence, and poems. And everyone would look forward to April’s thirty days of celebration known as National Poetry Month. Sounds idyllic to me.
Tomorrow, April 24, happens to be Poem in Your Pocket Day and I’m letting you know about it so you can play along too if you’d like. The idea is simple: carry a favorite poem with you and share it with others during the day.
I’ve made a little origami pocket for myself and slipped in three of favorite poems which I’ll be sharing tomorrow. Since we’ll likely not meet in person tomorrow, I thought I’d share one of them with you today by poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,please come to the gate immediately.
Well — one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew — however poorly used – she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her — Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — out of her bag — and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.
And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers — non-alcoholic — and the two little girls for our flight, one African-American, one Mexican-American — ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar, too.
And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate — once the crying of confusion stopped — has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen, anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
Yes – this is the world I want as well. We’re all part of it and we all have our pieces to share – whether it’s cookies, or poems, or hugs, or comfort during a time of confusion.
Do you have a favorite poet you celebrate? A vision of the world you want to be part of? A favorite cookie you’d share with your fellow travelers? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Oh isn’t that such a wonderful story …. I want that world too.
Mine would have to be Seamus Heaney or Patrick Kavanagh. Both wrote about the land and their fathers in different ways. I’m not sure if I can leave this link in a comment but here goes nothing says you …..
Here’s Seamus reading his poem Digging ..
Fil
Fil’s Place – Old Songs and Memories
I’m not sure I know Patrick Kavanagh so I’ll most definitely be checking him out – thanks!
But I most certainly love Seamus Heaney’s work Fil. And what a delight to hear him read (thank you interwebs!). Here’s the YouTube link for anyone else interested:
http://youtu.be/KNRkPU1LSUg
The
Oops … didn’t work!!
Not sure why Fil, but I posted a link in my response above.
Hey Deborah, I’m just catching up with your blogs… (they still aren’t coming to my inbox) ….. always a wonderful, inspirational, informative and magical pastime. Having spent time in the afore mentioned Albuquerque airport made the wonderful story even more marvelous. I love the sacramental cookies and traveling plants. I didn’t realize that traveling with plants was an old world custom…. I travel with plants because I can’t imagine not sharing them either with friends on the one end or friends sharing them with me on the return trip. Tending for the new visitors at home brings back wonderful memories from their former homes and owners…. a living love letter.
Smiles, Corky
Oh Corky – your issues with my RSS feed are more perplexing to me than rocket science! And so I’m extra grateful you take the time to hunt down my posts anyway. Thank you!
I LOVE that you are a plant traveler. That’s perfect.
Oh. Tears. Yes, that is the world I want too.
Indeed.
I’ve never heard of Poem in Your Pocket Day, but I love it!
It’s great isn’t it?
Poem in Your Pocket Day……I’ve never heard of it either, but what a fab idea! Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure. 🙂
I love the little tree drawing. Did you make that? I’m just getting into poetry again. I like David Whyte lately.
Oh yes – David Whyte is a fave as well. In fact one of the 3 poems I carried in my pocket was one of his entitled Everything is Waiting for You
Once I would have carried poems from Joy Harjo or William Stafford or Pablo Neruda — not in my pocket, but in my memory. These days, it’s P.G. Wodehouse, not as a poet, but as a writer of “musical comedies without the music.” If you count lyrics from vintage Broadway hits as potential poems, then I’m potentially in love with a poet. 😉
Just did a bit of googling about and came up with this from Wodehouse, as spoken by one of his Mulliner characters. Certainly not of the same echelon as the poets I studied in college, but then again, neither am I:
But in my Animals “Who’s Who”
No name stands higher than the Gnu;
And each new gnu that comes in view
Receives my prompt attention.
… from “Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court,” a story I recall being somewhat uncomfortable, that did little to further animal rights. (Though Wodehouse was a staunch animal lover.)
That’s fun Harmony. And now of course I want to create my own Animals Who’s Who – wouldn’t that be a lark?