I’m Unable to Explain

Shari Daya

After Pablo Neruda

I planted pink geraniums, white helichrysum. 
None of us knows what to do with our hands. 
Molly cuts paper, tenderly, emplaces the fragments,
Pippin hefts a brick. They are both correct.
I sit with Becca, newly-met, at the vigil,
our palms shape small pockets of stillness
so our candles hold fast in the breeze.
Sa’diyya sings Arabic into the wind,
it carries like smoke, like dust. Thandi
and Asanda speak, and their voices are consolation.
Who now will console the children left in Palestine,
the endlings of their families? It is no use writing of cosmos,
their fluttering petals, it is no use dancing
with my children in the evening, while the blood
of the children of Gaza runs in the streets,
without fuss, like children’s blood.
It is no use.
But our bodies know that not everything is for using,
my sisters. Dancing, keeping vigil, throwing rocks,
still or furious, weeping, raging, laughing, in this time,
we honour and grieve. When we do not know what to do,
we do what we know. Plant, write, cook,
we eat and talk, we wash the dishes. These too
are acts of mourning, these too are promises.

(New Contrast issue 206)