Hedy Habra

Phoenicians Once Sailed from These Shores

Fishermen, shoulders bent,

set sail daily,

carrying baits,

oil lamps, a loaf of bread.

Theirs a biblical patience,

taking them farther

every day,

muscles tight, foreheads furrowing,

awaiting the secular miracle,

their nets deployed

in an ancestral garb,

flutters as a dancer’s veil

enveloping the dense,

sterile Mediterranean waters,

scooping algae, residues, dead fish,

fugitive ripples.

They return home empty-handed,

later every time,

at dawn or dusk,

eyelids lowered,

disappearing under thick eyebrows,

their flattened nets

heavy with absence

First published by Live Encounters Magazine

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019) 

Blue Heron

An Egyptian sculpture 

lost in the Northern wilderness,

the blue heron stands out

in the whitened landscape,

mimics an ibis’ fixed stare,

studies the frozen creek, 

sensing trembling gills

beneath the transparent sheet.

But why land in my backyard 

I wonder, where no lotus ever grows?

Unless he sees his own ancestral roots 

in my wide-open eyes lined with kohl, 

and knows that water from the Nile

still runs in my veins since birth.

In warmer seasons he has seen me 

feed the silver fish,

tend the vegetable garden,

bend over perennials 

springing stronger each year,

add more seeds, 

making this our home,

where we’ve lived the longest ever.

Today he saw me walk in circles

in the stillness of barren trees 

over crisp snowflakes 

masking all signs of life,

the forget-me-nots throbbing 

under their icy coat, scintillating,

a thousand suns 

opening a dam of flowing memories

on sunnier shores 

promises of blossoms to come

 

until suddenly, as if pulsated by an engine, 

statuesque, the migrant bird deploys gigantic 

wings, disappears through the dead branches.

First published in Come Together: Imagine Peace

From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)

Vision

Now a mural,

the page

stretches, calling for paint,

brushes, a ladder.

Words with clipped wings

stumble,

scattered here and there, 

clothes 

thrown in haste 

as you rush

into a lover's arms. 

Two androgynous silhouettes 

engage 

in an elegant tango, 

twist and turn, 

limbs bent in unison. 

Later, when light after light

has been put out, 

when oak branches brush

roofs and windows, filling 

the house with murmurs,

when every sound,

a menace,

you rest in inkwell darkness.

Feathers escape their cotton 

prison, circle 

like maddened fireflies

bonfire sparks, 

you think of midnight rides in a Felukah

along the glistening Nile, 

of the way timid lovers

wrote ephemeral messages, 

with their

lighted cigarettes.

A cloud of down 

fills the room,

schools of flashing fish

slither

on the walls of your waking.

Following a ray of moon,

you yearn 

for a sliver of diamond,  

reach for paper, pen, to keep 

the vision alive,

but it melts into water, vanishes 

as you hold on tight to your 

feather pillow.

First published by Parting Gifts

From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)