Under the Sun                                                                          —Hayan Charara


Which is holier,
the cathedral
burning

or the spiders
under the pews?
Is the match holy?

The phosphorus sesquisulfide,
the potassium chlorate,
the ammonium phosphate,

the paraffin wax,
the pine and ash,
the pine and ash

set aflame?
And the moth
to the fire

or the butterfly
to the tree?
Which is holier,

the egg,
the caterpillar, the caterpillar
in the cocoon,

in the chrysalis,
or the transmogrification?
Holy, holy.

Holy eyes, ears, mouth, nose.
Holy chin, cheeks, forehead.
Holy face, the face

loved as trees, leaves, bark, and roots
are loved.
Which is holier,

oak or linden?
The pleasure of the oak,
the sorrow of the linden.

Under a tree, a pecan,
a woman tells a joke,
the punchline

“donkey dick.”
It is June, July, August.
Flies, mosquitoes, cicadas.

Humidity in the morning,
in the afternoon,
at sunset, midnight, dawn.

Holy day, holy night.
Holy flies, holy mosquitoes,
holy donkey.

Under a tree, a pine,
a leaf falls.
A thousand leaves fall.

Lobed, toothed, and untoothed.
Surrounded
by trees, a woman

remembers the fingers
touching her, the body
her fingers touched.

The sadness of joy,
the joy of sin.
The brilliance and astonishment

of a general proposition
weighed down
by the particular.

For better and worse.
Sin is like a tree, like a leaf,
like a flowering fruit.

Like these trees, those leaves,
this flower, that fruit.
In a paradisal garden,

which is holier,
the tree,
the fruit from the tree,

the woman eating
the fruit,
or the fruits of her labor?

In a garden
the pear thief mystic
hears a child, a girl or boy.

“Pick it up and read it.”
“Pick it up and read it.”
Is the fig holier than the body?

Is the acacia holier
than the mind?
The locust than memory?

Please pray
to the gingko, the poplar,
the sycamore.

Kneel before
the elm and alder.
Swear to the apple,

the plum, and the beech.
In the name of persimmon,
hemlock, and cypress,

in the name of ant,
mite, and beetle,
in the name of what drives us

to get up and look,
in the name of what saves us,
and what finishes us

at last.


Self-portrait after a Funeral


I bought groceries, washed
dishes, peeled
oranges for the kids, watched
TV—all the while and into the night

I had profound thoughts.
And by the morning I knew
for sure
they were not.


Hayan Charara

Hayan Charara is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and editor. His poetry books are Something Sinister (2016), The Sadness of Others (2006), and The Alchemist’s Diary (2001). His children’s book, The Three Lucys (2016), received the New Voices Award Honor, and he edited Inclined to Speak (2008), an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry. With Fady Joudah, he is also a series editor of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. His honors include a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lucille Joy Prize in Poetry from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, the John Clare Prize, and the Arab American Book Award. He currently teaches in the Honors College and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019