Why Doesn’t the Sky Love Us?

- By Lisa Suhair Majaj

Lisa Suhair Majaj in Amman, Jordan, circa 1968.
Photo courtesy of the author.

Through the tent flap the child saw bomb-light
streak the sky, heard the drum of thunder
that was not thunder. She should have been
too young to grasp the proximity of death,
but this was Gaza. She asked her mother pensively,

What if I were a river? You could build a raft,
and I’d float you away from danger.

Her mother, not wanting to remind her that floating
is forbidden in Gaza, like other kinds of freedom,
that even the sea is walled off from the shore, replied,

Maybe you could be a river of song.
Yallah, let’s sing together!

But the child continued her musings.

If the moon comes into the tent, will it be safe?
Open the flap and let it in! That way, maybe the sky
will be grateful and love us. Why doesn’t it love us?

The mother wanted to answer, but the shaking ground
made it hard to think. She looked at her daughter’s face,
translucent like a ghost’s, tried to remember when
they had eaten last. The girl spoke out dreamily.

I remember when we had a house, I opened the door to let in
a song, but it got stuck. I tried so hard to pull the song inside. . .

The mother picked up the child and held her close,
felt the girl’s heartbeat trembling against her chest
like a sparrow’s. Outside there was a red light illumining
everything, and a roaring. People were running
in all directions to nowhere. The child continued
to speak, her voice wavering a little.

Have you ever heard the sound of a song dying?
That song flew to the sky and never came back. I miss it.

LISA SUHAIR MAJAJ is a Palestinian American writer. She is the author of Geographies of Light (Del Sol Press, 2009) and of poems and essays in many journals and anthologies. Her writing has been used in art exhibitions, political demonstrations, and tattoos. She lives in Cyprus.