He went into his garden in a state of mind unjust to his soul: He said, “I deem not that this will ever perish (Quran 18:35)
How does it feel to see the
Earth that nurtured you covered
With condos and townhouses—
Gone beneath new sidewalks and sod?
Those who roam it now do not know
They do not touch the earth
The earth that felt the pounding
Of children’s playful feet as they ran and shrieked
And laughed through childhood games
In front of creaking apartments where no one
Was poor (for how can you be poor if you
Have what everyone else has?)—
Where there were only aunts and uncles and cousins
The grandparents, the neighbors, the churchgoers
The shopkeepers who’d known your people
For thirty years or more
That earth was our refuge
Those who drive past manicured lawns
In quiet, air-conditioned cars do not hear the earth
The earth that heard the sounds
Of lovemaking, the arguments and fights
Of the grown-ups who left each day
To struggle through the world outside
Then came back to bury their frustrations,
Their pain, their humiliations in gin and sin and sex
In parties and in prayer, in music and in the joy
Of those small, brown babies that toddled among them
Those who relish smooth white walls, new stone edifices
And fresh concrete do not see the earth
Do not see the earth that saw generations
Displaced and scattered as bulldozers destroyed
And wrecking crews eviscerated their memory
From the landscape
Or the crews that came to construct
The other lives heedless of those
Whose blood and tears and joy
Were locked in the earth beneath their feet
I see them unaware and remember
How as a child in this same place,
I tried to listen for the sounds
Of forests I knew had been there once
And pretended I that could almost hear the lives
In the Odawa villages trapped beneath the sidewalks
Now Allah has blessed me
To ponder His meaning
In the memory of my life
As it rests beneath my own feet
Buried below the newly paved streets
Lost somewhere in the earth
Posted by ummumar
