Departure

Hold me, hold me in your heart for in your eyes you will behold me no longer

I will be long gone beyond touch, greeting, or grief like the peonies of spring post a shower or two past summers, tides and waves past birthdays and anniversaries

Like cranes that fly in during spring to be long gone as the bleak sky beacons even tears become flaky lines of salt once wiped away what trace of pain remains but just the memory whimpers are sobs gone flat, choking subsides arms grow limp, clenched fists relax the pillows dry, the handkerchiefs fly away in the wind

The roses bleed not with their rosiness but as each petal drops listlessly until there is just a bunch of stumps the Sun sets, the Moon waxes and wanes laughter dies, honeymoons end

So, it is nothing strange that I should leave I would have loved to tarry a little longer but I have been hurried along probably will miss the next Ramadaan as well as the next Eid

O' how I wish to have made the Hajj but it will have to wait you go along without me remember me when you don pilgrim's white garb while moving in circles around the Black Cube

Remember me at the Station of Ibrahim as you reach for Zamzam's deliciously cool water or hurrying between the hillocks of Safa and Marwa just like the distraught Hagar

Remember me when the Udhya is done as you clip or shave your hair and, for sure, at the gravesite of God's Friend beseech his Lord to look out for me

I am Palestine I died so that Jerusalem should live!