three magi

a glimpse into Day 3:

Grandmothers 

wear scarves in their hair

lifting prayer books to their faces

where bobbing eyes have left tears on open pages.

(Prayers are written and folded like gum wrappers as Tetris players approach the wall one by one. How can we fit all these small squares of paper prayers?)

Girls in matching black skirts and ponytails rock forward and back, forward and 

but one girl in particular stands out.

Standing on a stool, her face is pressing tightly against the limestone wall the way 

I'd like to press myself to sunlight today. She's bright. Her lips move slightly into a smile, never mind that the wall won't let her in.

the phenomenon of the western wall:
here, i'm proud to be a Jew
and I'm not Jewish.

(a few months prior) Day 2:

Sometimes the world is so beautiful i start to cry.
Sunrise on the Dead Sea picks up the desert in its arms
 and gilds her gently.

The sun is up and painting, fingers dragging mirth across his canvas.
 (or
is he a blacksmith? his workshop begins to glow.)

Rising over groves of date palms, the sun
blinds
he is growing taller as we drive.

Once, I grew taller
and the sun was my constant.

Does he remember
little me with dusty palms and rubber shoes?
He will rise above me forever,
but
Today
we are just 42 people learning each other's laughs.

We're artists in a bus,
tracing the Dead Sea,
tracing groves of date palms,
tracing a beach day in our minds
pulling out a stencil for new friendships
again.

In the beginning (Day 1):

We miss their shining eyes.

These are more stars than i have ever seen and each one of
them left heart-craters.

Candles down below become explosions of light pricks

Twisting cords of

fairy lights

Nebulae reaching for somewhere else

They're happy now.

You and I pause in 

reflections of eternally

 expanding 

starlight.

(I'm waiting for an answer.)

who am i because of 10 minutes in a children's holocaust memorial?

--

the fish

Galilee is a blue chair in the sand.
the alternatives were white reclining chairs and
we are
"more numerous than the sands of the sea"

what if Christ fed the multitude with his toes in this sand?

let me sit here forever.

in the ocean of Abraham's posterity I'd like to be one of the grains that saw him, a pinprick in the multitude but he knew the shape of my life.

I was playing the guitar with my feet in the water
I was crunching seashells as I jogged
I was digging my toes in the sand
I was

"swollen with joy," he said. his heart was swollen with joy
and I finally found the feeling of this kibbutz

soft and gentle,
as if someone were spreading butter on my heart.
Sunset here is fresh acrylics replacing a sepia world.

I don't have the words to put Galilee into a box, and I don't want them.

what I want is
humility so I will always remember
what I want is
more time but its time for dinner
what I want is
more chances so what i give will be enough

abundantly so.

call to prayer

I am sitting in the world's first breath.
Five times a day, we all breathe together, and this is the first.
















We're in my favorite place.
A place of pattern.
cobblestone lines racing beneath my crossed legs jump into a fence
and the ancient cityscape beyond it.
The fence is white and checkerboard,
the valley is a soup of vectors and a horizon that is always dusty and faded
history's housetops run northward until they melt into sunflowers and olive trees

Breathing.
we've grown up on fresh
air
but here it breaks from the lungs of a Muslim man in an unnamed tower before its ours to inhale.
lets call him grandfather.

You can taste his patterns of sound,
they are woven together like straw hats.
Grandfather has a city to watch over, men and women to guide home through their streets on pilgrimage to bow at the waist and bow to the ground;
many times, daily, to prayer.

Allah.
voices from the minarets
are trumpets
they are proud
like opera singers
they are echoing from there to here on the hill where I sit, listening.
they are
many voices coloring the air, drops of water falling together
until they are swimming together
in our blood and waking up college students at 4:30 and at 12 and at 3:30 and at 5:50 and at 7 and we forget its there
like the air we breathe.

This is one time, today.
I pick it up like a bookmark
to remind me where I am.

Palestine, a series: Hope

We want to change things and it feels like fire.

not afraid of a dousing.

Palestine, a series: Sorrow

He talks about Palestine like people talk about their families

like I talk about my parents' divorce and my struggling little brothers

like Katie talked about her dad leaving

like I think about breaking up with Cyle

"Palestine..."

still its a beautiful word coming out of his mouth.
it makes him swallow a lot and he teaches with silence.

normally his words are hardened;
this is a fact of life.
"the Palestinians are losing hope."

Palestine, a series: Freedom

I'm holding the flowers.
She was beautiful
the thought of being equal
She did so much good to all around her,
always happy, and kind.
She will be missed.

Midnight:22

some thoughts, to a friend:

I hear you ever time i sigh.
I think we are breathing together.
Can you hear me?

When I'm thinking about the truck bed, can you hear me?
when I'm feeling the roof tiles under my feet,
when I'm tasting the blackberries
when I'm running in the dark neighborhood around my apartment, tilted up at the stars and lifting my arms to fly

I see you but
Can you hear me?
I know you can.

are we thinking the same thoughts?
when I want to lean against you and study 
when I'd like to hear you laugh
J U S T  B Y  E X I S T I N G 
I wade through parallels to you.

(can you hear me breathe?)

Its midnight and I had a midterm today and one tomorrow and I'm not ready for my test but I'm ready to write to you.
I'd like you to be tangible. Anything about you could be tangible.
As it is I'll sleep soon when I finish my laundry and then I'll wake up soon when I finish my dreams and then I'll be in class soon and 
it was nice to be in control of my life, 
I guess I'd like that back again. 

Time will tell. Might tell you, might tell me, she tends to whisper and I'd really like to hear but 

now the world seems loud.

Today we did cartwheels in the grass 

barefoot

and I remembered there's a moon.

Its like I jumped into a barrel of feeling:

I don't know which feeling, but I've got a new coat of paint

and I feel a little tripped up

like my skin is half dry and half stripy

and half camouflage

and a quarter sore from studying

and the other 80% is confused

this probably means I'm shifting into a new shape

or on my way to getting those big white wings. 

I know what I shouldn't say.

Meh

a world with him is a better world.

- I M  G R A T E F U L  I  S T I L L  L I V E  T H E R E -

Goodbye,
Everett Mills