Cups of Gold: a poem.

or, About Hospitality

Mahmoud Darwish's Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982

---

Cups of Gold (or, About Hospitality)

Nearly everything I've learned
about hospitality is from Arabs.

Home cooked Palestinian meals and stories fed,
Farming shoulder to shoulder on their occupied land,
Beyond a boulder that reads in many tongues:
We Refuse to Be Enemies.

Translating, sharing Darwish poetry with me, now
Through me, and taking me to the place where he's
Painted into the past and future on the walls
Of the first refugee camp I'd see,
the real story, a real invitation.

Women from Gaza trusting my presence
as a photographer in their camp,
letting me see beyond their veils,
Fatfada, into their hearts.
Can still smell the fresh sage plucked leaf from stem
where soap is poured and herbal packets stuffed.
That's the scent of Jordan to me.

Em Ahmed leading me through the bowels of Shatila,
Serving me ice like a slushy from her freezer,
Where she barely has electricity.
Crushed into rose water for me,
Respite from the oppressive Beiruti heat
And oppressed everything else in Lebanon.
It is always their best, I'm telling you.

Can still taste the cardamom in the Arabic qahwah,
A refuge in the middle of Shatila Camp.
Here, gold in my cup.
Of course I mean coffee, but also,
Clean drinking water in a camp with
U.N. Hell Water rusting its forks.
That's what's coming out of the tap, if at all.
My cup transformed with beans
dried roasted ground brewed
poured into connection.

Nothing transforms us more than connection.
This is the arabesque way.

My favorite Colfax restaurant, long before
I discovered the owner was Palestinian
Where I went to remember the flavors of my memory,
Is where I learned to anticipate him pulling up a chair
To host us at his place.
It’s like he doesn’t know how to not turn
a little snack into a feast.
Always more wine and tales – his treat.
Like we're old friends with old stories.
Let it be so.

There was Waad documenting her life
To show her daughter, Sama, and to
Show the world, and show me,
What happens when a woman decides to
tell the unvarnished truth,
And makes a war documentary
About the making of a family —
Her Syrian refugee family.
I'll never forget her baby or her garden
Or her bombs or her leaving Aleppo
And her hospital basement-home
I visited for the 100 minute run time.
And how she re-reminded me to keep
turning art into stories and
stories into art.

I'll never forget the face of Nadine's boy
at the end of "Capernaum".
Or the hope of Naomi's "Gate A-4"
which for me was in Italy,
not Albuquerque, though I've
flown out of Sunport enough times to know.

Once there was a covered girl
in my Hamra dorm room
On holiday from Cairo, who
Gave me flower earrings.
We were only bunkmate strangers.
I'd never even seen her hair or earlobes.
It was an Eid gift I still wear to remember to listen.

It was in Sabra that an Arab shopkeeper
Wouldn't sell me candy.
I wanted to pay him if I was going to
Photograph his colorful display of
Treats and he said ahlan wasahlan
And I said thanks how wow?
He let me taste it and have it instead.
Take and eat.

A Palestinian refugee introduced me to God.
Some call him Jesus and I've never forgotten
His heritage or the space he holds for everyone
At the table.

This is how again and again I've been invited
Back in, back through, back home.

Arabiyya, lead the way.

---

Yalla,