The Words Under the Words

“My Grandmother in the Stars” by Naomi Shihab Nye (1994)

This poem begins with the line “It is possible we will not meet again / on earth” (Line 1-2) and describes memories she has of herself and her grandmother sitting on a roof with their “separate languages adrift.” This poem is another tribute to her grandmother after her passing at the age of 106.

“Jerusalem” by Naomi Shihab Nye (1994)

This poem opens with an epigraph that states, “Let’s be the same wound, if we must bleed.” In the poem the speaker tells a story of her father getting hit by a stone when he was a boy and how hair would not grow in that spot. She makes a parallel to having a place in her own brain where “hate will not grow.” As the title suggests, the poem is about Jerusalem, and in it the speaker professes a wish that people stop fighting with one another. As for who has “suffered the most” she says she does not care. She’s interested in “people getting over it.”

“My Father and the Fig Tree” by Naomi Shihab Nye (2002)

In this poem the speaker tells a story about her father’s love of fig trees, which are prominent in his home country of Palestine but he could not find in the United States.