[.jump-title] Hold On [.jump-title]

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not…
gather the gleanings of your harvest.…
Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.
Leviticus 19:9 – 10

This grip of patience, after the scythe
cuts in. Most have dropped – relieved –
into gathering arms – brusque, adequate,
but this foolish remnant holds their roots.

Perhaps they have made this calculation:
on the one hand, to become a clean-scrubbed
loaf on the landowner’s table, surrounded
by his ruddy children and their stout grins

On the other to be plucked by a strange
or timid hand, rolled right there for all
to start at their plump kernels shed
by unfluent palms, and the perfect snap

of a willing seed between hungry teeth.
For the meek inherit a happy earth.

[.imgcaption] Suleiman Mansour, Untitled [.imgcaption]

[.jump-title] To Sing [.jump-title]

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs … of joy.
Psalm 137:1–3

Every harp hung on a poplar
left a mute slew of fingers.

There was still the bread-making, the
laundry, the struggle with the tongue -
twisted rope of the well. Later infernal
socks to darn; still later typewriter keys.

Those, of all, came close to singing.

But even now, if you hold out your hands –
nails up – you will see them tremble,
ever so slightly. Like a tuning fork or
vibratoed note, remembering, trying.

[.imgcaption] Suleiman Mansour, Quiet Morning [.imgcaption]