A poem

I ran across this poem by Dr. Mohja Kahf. I think it's stunning. And stunningly beautiful.

All Good

They see it as far-off,

but We see it as near.

Quran, The Ways of Ascent 70:6-7

Out in the blue infinitude

that reaches and touches us

sometimes, Hajar and Sarah

and Abraham work together

to dismantle the house of fear, brick

by back-breaking brick.

With a broom of their own weaving,

they sweep the last remains

away. They sit down for a meal

under the naked stars.

Ismaïl and Isaac come around shyly,

new and unlikely companions.

Hajar introduces them

to her second and third husbands

and a man from her pottery class

who is just a friend.

Hajar's twelve grandchildren

pick up Sarah's twelve at the airport.

The great-grandchildren appear,

set down their backpacks,

and tussle to put up the sleeping tents,

knowing there will be no more rams,

no more blood sacrifice.

Sorrows furrow every face.

This, in the firelight, no one denies.

No one tries to brush it all away

or rushes into glib forgiveness.

First, out of the woods, shadows emerge:

the dead of Deir Yassin,

killed by Zionist terror squads,

the Kiryat Menachim bus riders

killed by Palestinian suicide bomber.

They face each other, tense up.

Some of them still do not have gravestones.

The ghosts of Mahmoud Darwish

and Yehuda Amichai begin to teach them

how to pronounce each other's names

in Hebrew and Arabic. The poets

will have a long night. Meanwhile,

a Hamas sniper, a Mosad assassin fall

to their knees, rocking; each one cries,

"I was only defending my—my—"

Into the arms of each,

Hajar and Sarah place a wailing

orphaned infant. Slow moaning

fills the air: Atone, atone.

The grieving goes on for untold ages,

frenzied and rageful in the immature years,

slowly becoming penitent and wise.

When an orange grove is given back

to its rightful owner, the old family drama

finally loses its power, withers, dies. A telling time

for new stories begins. Housekeys

digging bloody stigmata into the palms

of Palestinians cast from their homes

turn into hammers and nails for the rebuilding.

Despite the abject pain

each person here has known, no family

that has not lost a child,

no one wishes they could change the past

because of which we have arrived

at this transforming time.

Hajar pours water that becomes

a subtle, sweet, and heretofore unheard of wine.

Sarah laughs again, more deeply.

Abraham is radiant. Everyone, this time

around, can recognize

in the eyes of every other,

the flickering light of the Divine.

In the very end, in the fourth,

unseen dimension that has been here

from the very beginning, unfolding

just outside the limits of our perception,

suffering, not in its rawest form,

but distilled in temperate hearts,

takes us to higher levels of cognition.

Hajar and Sarah, Ismaïl and Isaac, you and I

break out of the cycle,

Here, Now, to higher life,

and it is fine.