Resettlement

The large man wasn't talking about the fire that consumed

my silver Chevy Nova when the rod was thrown

nor the firebomb that climbed the walls

of the crack house like a mad vine,

but the way the engine of the rocket burns through

the atmosphere. Or the rough, humming sound

the belched screams my

Syrian neighbor described, when the bombs

left ashes in Aleppo.

And I tried to tell him that in Detroit,

away from the danger of war, you may

step smack-dab into another one.  His wife,

covered in the black silk of her hijab, never

speaks on public. Walks three paces

silently and quietly behind him. So with my

silly self,

I think about Monk and how Nelly had to do all his

talking when Al Mckibbon was too ugly/ then

he goes into this explanation about tradition

(while standing too close to me) and from his

one piece hooded burnous, I sense him clinging

to old ways. Untrimmed beards; turbans

far removed from the grit of the Palmyra.

Yet the gist of what he meant is that there

will be people uprooted from their

homes, villages, cultures, streets and livelihoods

and placed into some exhausting brilliance. and

like the Hispanic family with foodstamps

who takes too long at the checkout counter

at Kroger's

there will  also be whispers.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

Monk, refugees and Krogers. Whooooooooee. Maybe we all, from the recent arrival from Damascus to the fifth-generation in Hamtramck have an uneasy relationship with home, or an uneasy belief in permanence, and thus the knowledge that "there will also be whispers." Big as a damn house yet once again, you are.

[h d e rushin]

Hamtramck? Who else would know that that is actually a real place. 50 percent Polish. 30 percent Arab. 15 percent Hindu. 5 percent Black. 100 percent American. Thanks for that reminder my friend....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

where is home? what is home? even when home doesn't feel like home anymore...people are settled and resettled and then resettled again...

and yes, there are whispers, because in today's world it is very hard to feel like we really belong anywhere...and even home may not be a place we want to call home.

[h d e rushin]

great insight my dear friend....thank you....dana