History has yet to start

Eleven years ago I gave you a poem by Iraqui-American poet Dunya Mikhail. (Wow—I’ve been doing National Poetry Month for 11 years?!) I’d heard her read “The War Works Hard” on NPR years before and bought her first collection that same day. It was one of the four books I carried with me when I moved to Seattle that were meant to tide me over until my shipped household goods arrived.

A Chaldean Catholic and a critic of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Mikhail fled Iraq in 1995 at age 30, eventually settling in Michigan, where she works as a lecturer in Arabic at Oakland University.

“Another Planet” is from The War Works Hard, which was published in 2005. But its themes and wishes are eternal. That’s poetry’s job—to remind us of how much or little we’ve progresses.

“Another Planet"

I have a special ticket
to another planet
beyond this Earth.
A comfortable world, and beautiful:
a world without much smoke,
not too hot
and not too cold.
The creatures
are gentler there,
and the governments
have no secrets.
The police are nonexistent:
there are no problems
and no fights.
And the schools
don’t exhaust their students
with too much work
for history has yet to start
and there’s no geography
and no other languages.
And even better:
the war
has left its “r” behind
and turned into love,
so the weapons sleep
beneath the dust,
and the planes pass by
without shelling the cities,
and the boats
look like smiles
on the water.
All things
are peaceful
and kind
on the other planet
beyond this Earth.
But still I hesitate
to go alone.
                     Tr: Kareem James Abu-Zeid

 

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