for juliano, one year after …

From MR 52.3/4:

“Here is what the mind does”*

when my laptop opens to a small red car, a tight street,
the dust gray and yellow, the electric window half open,
and five little lean-to cards, on each a number to denote

where a spent round ended after traveling its distance                         
with lead certitude, with molten heat a match for its sense                      
of the truth, and where blood pooled by the opened door,

pooled and followed a tilt in the road—it was not far,                             
was more a lingering, as if it could choose not to leave,                           
and now that this man was gone it was just standing

around like those on their way to and from their work                           
or school, or those carrying plastic bags of food, those                     
merely puzzled or curious, who watch men with duties

do them as quickly as they can, which is slowly, a picking                   
through pieces, which is what the mind does at moments                        
like this, and, honestly, it is not much more than nothing.

                        Juliano Mer-Khamis, in mem.*
                        April 4, 2011

 

*A line from Karl Kirchwey’s “Untitled”
**Juliano Mer-Khamis was the director of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine.