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On a Hilltop at the Nassar Farm

On a Hilltop at the Nassar Farm 546463 NLFXXX10.1177/1095796014546463New Labor ForumPoetry research-article2014 Poetry 113 By Elana Bell DOI: 10.1177/1095796014546463 This is for Amal, whose name means hope, who eat from it and the dogs who protect it who thinks of each tree she’s planted like a child, and the tiny white blossoms it scatters in spring. whose family has lived in the same place for a hundred years, and when I say place And when I say love I mean Amal has never I mean this exact patch of land married. where her father was born, and his father, so that the shoots he planted before her birth All around her land the settlements sprout like now sweep over her head. Every March weeds. she plucks the green almonds and chews They block out the sun and suck precious water their sour fuzzy husks like medicine. through taps and pipes while Amal digs wells to collect the rain. I am writing this poem I have never stayed anywhere long enough though I have never drunk rain to plant something and watch it settle into its bloom. collected from a well dug by my own hands, I am from a people who move. never pulled a colt through Who crossed sea and desert and city the narrow opening covered in birth fluid with stone monuments, with clocks, with palaces, and watched its mother lick it clean, on foot, on skeleton trains, through barracks or eaten a meal made entirely of things with iron bunks, aching for a place we could stay. I got down on my knees to plant. All our prayers, all our songs for that place where we had taken root once, where we had been And when I say settlement I mean the ones to send the others packing and now— I love the red tiled roofs, the garden in the shape of a garden, Amal laughs with all her teeth and her feet water that comes when I call it forth tickle the soil when she walks. She moves with the flick of my wrist and my hand on the tap. through her land like an animal. She knows it Only lately I find that when I ache in the dark. She feeds stalks to the newborn it takes the shape of a well. colt and collects its droppings like coins And when I bleed I emit a scent to fertilize the field. Amal loves this land something like a sheep in heat, and when I say land I mean this like dirt after rain, exact dirt and the fruit of it like a patch of small white flowers and the sheep who graze it and the children too wild to name. —Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from Eyes, Stones (2012) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png New Labor Forum SAGE

On a Hilltop at the Nassar Farm

Bell, Elana
New Labor Forum , Volume 23 (3): 1 – Sep 1, 2014
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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2012
ISSN
1095-7960
eISSN
1557-2978
DOI
10.1177/1095796014546463
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

546463 NLFXXX10.1177/1095796014546463New Labor ForumPoetry research-article2014 Poetry 113 By Elana Bell DOI: 10.1177/1095796014546463 This is for Amal, whose name means hope, who eat from it and the dogs who protect it who thinks of each tree she’s planted like a child, and the tiny white blossoms it scatters in spring. whose family has lived in the same place for a hundred years, and when I say place And when I say love I mean Amal has never I mean this exact patch of land married. where her father was born, and his father, so that the shoots he planted before her birth All around her land the settlements sprout like now sweep over her head. Every March weeds. she plucks the green almonds and chews They block out the sun and suck precious water their sour fuzzy husks like medicine. through taps and pipes while Amal digs wells to collect the rain. I am writing this poem I have never stayed anywhere long enough though I have never drunk rain to plant something and watch it settle into its bloom. collected from a well dug by my own hands, I am from a people who move. never pulled a colt through Who crossed sea and desert and city the narrow opening covered in birth fluid with stone monuments, with clocks, with palaces, and watched its mother lick it clean, on foot, on skeleton trains, through barracks or eaten a meal made entirely of things with iron bunks, aching for a place we could stay. I got down on my knees to plant. All our prayers, all our songs for that place where we had taken root once, where we had been And when I say settlement I mean the ones to send the others packing and now— I love the red tiled roofs, the garden in the shape of a garden, Amal laughs with all her teeth and her feet water that comes when I call it forth tickle the soil when she walks. She moves with the flick of my wrist and my hand on the tap. through her land like an animal. She knows it Only lately I find that when I ache in the dark. She feeds stalks to the newborn it takes the shape of a well. colt and collects its droppings like coins And when I bleed I emit a scent to fertilize the field. Amal loves this land something like a sheep in heat, and when I say land I mean this like dirt after rain, exact dirt and the fruit of it like a patch of small white flowers and the sheep who graze it and the children too wild to name. —Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from Eyes, Stones (2012)

Journal

New Labor Forum – SAGE

Published: Sep 1, 2014

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