Feel the Walls, by Sarah Sassoon

My friend Sarah was kind enough to give me permission to share the draft of the poem she wrote in response to our piece. I know I will have this poem in my head when I get to the Miffal today.

How many stones

have you touched

today these cracks

with asthma weed grows

on you small green leaves

flower bouquets

tiny red whispers

who lives here

these voices in the wall

wanting to come back

there is nothing

trucks took away the clothes

we were so young

how we wore our youth

light cotton white dresses

we could move old and new

but now looking back

it’s heavy to carry trucks

it’s my mother’s house

not a school’s

is she still my mother

or this house

no one can take mother

this house is taken

by who remembers

mother

we wanted to come back

but Baghdad was bombed

they didn’t want us to come back

and even if I returned

Al Yahudi without kahi

honey and qaymar to prove

once my grandmother dipped

her ankles in the A’Hiddeqel

once my grandfather rowed

a boat across the banks

once there was a house

where they were young

I the young now see

once they were young enough

to believe they had a home

with a table and chairs

a wardrobe of folded clothes

a white cotton dress

washed from the Farhud

still hanging

because there is only that much

you can pack in one suitcase