Cloaked in Garments of a Palestinian Spring*

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

June 3, 2004

She hid her sorrow

Cloaked in the persona

Of Palestinian wildflowers

Burst forth in prisms

Of violet and yellow

Brilliant hues

Exposed to the weathered

Trauma of loved ones

Exiled to migratory

Wanderings she waited

As a stone waits

Unmoved to retreat

But filled her soul

With sunshine remedy

And the sweet aroma

Of rock rose blooming

And birds singing

In a Palestinian spring

Born of the ancient

Womb of the Bride

Of Palestine Jaffa

Sea port bathed in saline

Memories of orange

Blossomed citrus groves

She fled with her boy

Child and dear husband

Into the Mediterranean

Mist wafting past

Terraced gardens

Arabic dwellings

Ghostly elegies

Moaned low

Inhabitants lost

Driven into the pulsing

Sea alive with vessels

Bearing mourners

Into exile

Witnesses all

To Zionist cruelty

At hand

In a mountainous

Retreat they settled

In Ramallah as refugee

Encampments grew

In the West Bank

In Gaza and on foreign soil

Anemone spilled blood

Red petals then resurrected

Yellow Daisies still bloomed

In Galilee the world leader

In Messianic music

Zealous rapture

And trinket sales

An artist palette

She acquired inspired

By simple joys

Flower

Pickings children’s

Laughter family outings

Echo

As paint dabbed

Skillfully on a canvas’

Poetic expanse

Ancient as Biblical Revelations

She gained insight

Floral secrets held in stalk life

Leaf and bud, stamen and bloom

Yarn spun was dyed to match

Hues artfully embroidered

But war exploded

In counterpoint

To her tapestries

Once again Israeli boots

Trampled

On the Rights the Lives

The Sacred Land

Palestine

Ravaged by armored

Tanks, fighter jets

Blocked out the sun

Bulldozers crushed Wheat

Flowers, Poppies and Wild Pea

Now in her nineties

Bomb blasts

Shatter glass

Against lace curtains

As she gathers

A violet dress

A yellow sash

To stave off

Death

*A tribute to Palestinian artist Marie Jabaji Tamari, world renowned for her floral tapestries, photographed and published by Turbo Design and the Institute for Jerusalem Studies in “Spring is Here, Embroidered Flowers of the Palestinian Spring,” text by Tania Tamari Nasir.