Tala (ode to the Girl-Palm)
by Majda Gama
published in Nimrod, Spring/Summer 2019, Volume 62, Number 2
Voices of the Middle East and North Africa
When I ate the fruit of the date palm delivered fresh
to me from an oasis in the empty quarter, admired
the gilt-twined bag the fruit lay in, & hesitated to disturb
this wonder of Arab irrigation, fruit-bat pollination, & desert patience,
I knew why fathers send their daughters to the West
with kilos of dates: sukkary, khudry, segai, heavily wrapped
& suspicious in luggage; the care in the fruit meant to last us in places
where trees drop all their leaves & appear dead to the eye.
I eyed my gift, portioned myself one to eat on a balcony casting a cool
shadow over sand speckled with blood & feathers from a wild falcon kill,
knew I could have sent that falcon into the sky to feed, knew
that to the East, in the oasis, young girl-palms were sheltering,
growing, while men in white bathed & dressed them,
named them, then let the desert raise them.
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