Ghazal : [inline-graphic 01i], and: Calligraphies XI, and: Makdisi Street Calligraphies

Abstract

Ghazal : [inline-graphic 01i], and: Calligraphies XI, and: Makdisi Street Calligraphies Marilyn Hacker (bio) Ghazal : Halab, Qamishli, Isdoud, for Ovid, once Rome—in the heartof exile, one name remains home in the heart. There are some stones and a small pile of ash in the desert.There is the silence beneath a magnificent dome in the heart. I look out at a three-quarter moon after three weeks’ confinementthat daily inflames a desire to roam in the heart. Not every old lady—but some—looking frail in the marketor too stout on the bus, has an insolent môme in the heart. The bad gene for cancer I probably got from my father.My blood pressure rises from which chromosome in the heart? Such palpitations, and all of them augur departure,throbbing beneath the unmarked aerodrome in the heart. What’s the djinn in my mind makes me want what I shouldn’t?I created that golem, invited that gnome in the heart. Silenced, the call to , the first bell of matins,in my cloister still start up the same metronome in the heart. your faces look out on all four chambers.If I am not honest with you, there’s no poem in the heart. [End Page 36] Calligraphies XI Fayza said to me“During the day, I’m happy,lonely when it’s dark.” She’s fifty-something, in atiny walk-up in Belleville, and made us kebbewith pomegranate syrup,hummus and fattouch. “When night falls, I’m alone withsolitude.” Claire, ninety-three. * Nine months of illness,a year away from Beirut,of timor mortis at six on summer morningsawake in sweat-crumpled sheets. Now with departure,a duffel bag of troubleon your mind again, you sort out the books and clothes,throw the unused pills away. [End Page 37] *Used clothes and used books,past years packed in shopping bagsfor charity shops to diminish the clutter,to make room for the clutter of too many booksjust bought, and clothes from the soldesas if you had space, as if your years could expandinto numberless chapters. * Meaningless numbers,a birth year, death year, an age,the months of mourning. Her engravings on the wall,her book, and hers, near my bed. There is nothing inthe buzz of ginger or wineto pry tomorrow out of the sunlight’s hollowone-sided conversation. * Conversation ina room, the rain, on a pathgoing anywhere [End Page 38] and nowhere, and where would yourather be? Gnarled apple trees, hydrangea bushesmoon-green in late afternoon,an old man with keys to his allotment gardenand a bag of lettuces. * Dropped the laundry bagoff where they remember mefrom a year ago. Squeezing my pomegranatejuice, the portly grizzled man asked: Don’t we know you?Yes, I was here last spring andtwo years before that. Women, the same ones or not,are begging on Hamra Street. * Hamra Street perfume:sizzling man’ouche, red diesel,late-day narguilehs. In one café two beardedmen my age write in notebooks. I’m not at home, I’mnot homesick, not sure of myfooting and language. [End Page 39] I could learn Spanish in French.Learn ‘amiyeh in fus’ha? * If I order itin fus’ha, the waitress smiles,brings my glass of wine, understanding how much Ientirely don’t understand. So much forgottenof noun roots, branches of verbsI scratched in notebooks for weekly hours when nothingor everything could go wrong. * “Old’s” the wrong gender,like being the only girlon a team of boys, wrong race; the one black orbrown student in a white class, entirely aloneif there’s a problem and you’rein over your head or too reticent to askin your old lady wolf suit. * [End Page 40] Wolf of solitude,oud in late October wind,wolf words at wolf-hour. Is there a revolutionnot routed or turned riot? Too tired or too late,in always the wrong language,but I’d howl in it intuiting what he meant,not repeating what she...