Exile blues

Appeared in The Rising Phoenix Review in July 2024

Exile Blues

By Khalil Sima'an

I. The spices and herbs come to their senses
when she calls upon them to obey whispers,
subtle calls to jam together, to yield
to charms, to play, to fool around and come
together, in an orgy of the senses.

The house awakens to purple Fairouz blues,
a nose stuffed with subtle scents and aromas,
and becomes ecstatic about roasted
cardamom, cumin and proud pine seeds.
The belly dictates the rhythm of the day
and the warm-hearted morning melody.

Little words she says when she decorates
the breakfast table with an orchestra
of wholesome dishes, and with the baton
of a matron symphony conductor
she sprinkles the seated admirers
with a concert of improvised sayings,

she casts the wonderful dust of sparkling spells
and hearty charms of wispy bygone times,
and the index fingers of stuffed courgettes
and vine leaves point at us with commanding
love: Children, dinner is always at home!

II. Today, I brought together green bunches
of exiled spices and imported herbs
and I gathered my pickled and preserved
determination to cook a faithful
imitation of springtime and the moon.

I tossed a purple ovoid idea
on the grill to find its dotted intestines
full of disappointed aubergine seeds,
and wept over wet-through parsley and mint
that sweat the northern rain when I mince them
in turn, with my razor sharp attention

and in my mind’s ear I hear her dictate:
“Leave the stuffed vine leaves. They shall cook gently
until the rice grains well up but stay composed.”

Before we could take a nostalgic seat,
I decorated the kitchen table
with fellahi earthenware, a bearded
bottle of Arak, dried poetry verses
and dashing lavender Fairouz blues,

and now we savour a dinner peppered
with love and salted with silence and longing,
for, “when the belly takes over the mind
the mouth ceases to speak.” And in my mind’s
eye she sprinkles us all with a concert
of improvised spells and lavender sayings.

Later this evening, I’ll listlessly gather
the remaining crumbs of disappointment
and proceed to feed the birds of exile.