Christopher Shull’s Reviews > Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose > Status Update

"And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate--once the crying of confusion stopped--seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

"This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost."

"This morning the newspaper/was too terrible to deliver/so the newsboy just pitched out/a little sheaf/of Kleenex."

"Ahmed Ismail Khatib, you died,/but you have so many bodies now./You became a much bigger boy./You became a girl too--/your kidneys, your liver, your heart./So many people needed what you had.//In a terribly moment,/your parents pressed against/spinning cycles of revenge/to do something better./They stretched./What can that say to the rest of us?"

"My father's friend Farouk/had a dream:/God resigned./And all the people took better care of one another/and got together then/because, well, they had to./Things grew really smooth./There was no one to blame or impress."

"All night they strum/their tuneless tunes/cousins of the crickets I heard/long ago in the corners of my room/I know their stories/to carry them out, not to crush them/and the small cages they are kept in/for good luck/but tonight I understand them/for the first time/ . . . light/they're saying Slow down/slow down/We told you this long ago but/you forgot"

"The Frogs Did Not Forget / how to do what they do/through the huge dry days/where were they hiding?/one might lose a tune abandon a tradition/fall into a crack but the frogs after the rain/were singing on six notes/outside the bedroom window's/tangle of vines/pleasure poking its throaty resonance/back into my brain"

"The strength of strangers will / help us survive. / Strangers are so generous. / They don't know our faults, our flaws, / so they hope for the best, / muttering good morning / when you pass at the bridge. / The consolation of strangers is endless and forgiving."

"So I've been obsessed. This is what happens in life. Something takes over your mind for a while and you see other things through a new filter, in a changed light."