The

Heroic
Flowers
Sprouting
Through
The
Stones
(two poetic stories of the twelve ones)

Dedication
 To the Palestinian people branded as a ‘’never give up
nation’’, exclusively to the Palestinian women
honourably named as ‘’ the heroic flowers sprouting
through the stones’’ despite the systematic
displacement of their native land. Despite the unjust
killings of their civilians, the bombing, and the
demolishing of houses, hospitals, and electrical power
stations. Despite the blocked entrances to their holy
places and the removal of their olive trees. Despite all
of injustices, the Palestinians -men, women and
children-
still heroically stand for their own land that is saturated
with innocent blood. They are still being killed but
buried in their own land that they manifest the rights
for it. They still miraculously survive staying firm with
faith in their heart and with the pieces of their favourite
poems on their tongue.
A flower sprouting through the stones
She was raised in line with one main pedagogical
instruction:
‘’Be obedient to your husband despite your destruction.
His wishes are not your wishes but your life guidelines
and aims
fulfilling that requires an immediate act without
complaints’’.

Above all her unpretentious, shy, and modest character

facilitates
the acceptance of a female mode of behaviour as
tribute and grace.
In her village community the background murmurs
always surrounded her
'' Oh, God, how could such a rare beauty be ignorant to
any object (attractive and adore)?

She shines as a pearl but is dressed in a grey robe…

what is the image she brings?''
It was a case when the neighbours' rumour touched the
core of things:
puberty passed but she did not see a prince in her night
dreams…
She got married when her parents decided that was the
best matchmakers-team.

As all her sisters, aunts, nieces, female friends, and

neighbours did
not delay in time, not to fall out of the rhythm, they
sprouted a seed.
Her marriage with an unknown man, unchosen
wholeheartedly
was played under a blanket with a trust on two senses
secretly.

Her proclaimed husband once crossed the threshold of

a bedroom
(each time timidly like it was the first wedding night, a
shy blushed groom)
the gravitation of bodies swelled to reach its climax, to
burst out as well
in glued attraction, to make her sink into more
addiction: to his smell…

He came in the pitch darkness leaving her some

minutes before sunrise,
punctually and speechlessly, coming from nowhere,
unnoticed like thin glass,
Her daily routine was rewarded with his enigmatic visit
at night (loud as alarming);
his family was waiting for her to conceive, her failure
doubled his re-coming.
Why wait? she was enjoying her animal drive to his
unrepeatable odour.
Alas, ah, when she got pregnant, the visits stopped,
and he closed the door
in the bedroom. The pregnancy was aggravated, the
delivery of the child too,
the sleepless nights and care of a newly born girl put
on a sexual taboo.

Not him, not his odour, like a dog with a scent she was
sniffing his traces,
she was not falling in love, but intoxicated with trodden
known paces…
When the date of relations expired, she was asked to
go out
together with her daughter, she packed a bag and
traced a new layout.

Divorce, low voice, no choice for feeding her and her

small daughter with bread,
a piece of hard-won plate of soup, no smell, just baked
dough instead.
Each threshold of house of a man she happened to step
over
the first shown room was the bedroom and for her it
was game over.

'' You are so sweet and attractive no one can look away
with their eyes''.
'' Oh, mum, common, I am treated as a new phone, a
new mobile device:
to stay in the queue, to buy, and to play with great
zeal, to boast to colleagues,
to put on a phone case, and to call spreading dirty
intrigues…’’

'' So many words..., but my stomach is empty, me and

your mum cannot keep you with us.
The extra expenses, all surpasses the potentiality of me
and my class’’.
‘’Oh, daddy, I am pushed to sell my body for such a low
price,
should I advance my sexuality in forced trainings and
exercise?’’

''You will never stay alone, look at you pretty as a

dream that comes real''.
''Oh, auntie, Exactly I will… Why am I to seek for
someone to pay my bill''.
'' The past life… and I may say in the past tense about
an unhappy marriage test.
The not chosen one by me, but imputed with no crime
in lieu of arrest''.

'' O my God, I am not complaining, more than anyone I

am satisfied with all that I have,
my hands are tired of work, my back is aching, but my
smile is light, not grim or grave.
My eyes are red, but still glimmering with a trace of joy
with hope of being heard by You,
my unpronounced dream is known for You, the One
who knows all secrets hitherto.

I pray for a dignified spouse, a rose without a thorn on

top of a bush,
destroying my female loneliness and isolation from
being with someone in pair all this does not push.
Despite the first marriage's disillusion and unhealed
welts I am having no one to scorn or to hate.
O my God, I believe in the symmetric matching of
people destined for one another, at any rate’’.

‘’If I am indifferent to anyone, am I an exception, or

hormone's degradation?
How not to overlook the destined pair, how not to
commit a mistake in the right evaluation
of the candidates? And how about those old ladies or
men who from the height of the age
with a deep, desperate sign can confess the absence of
true love standing at the verge?

My husband was erroneously destined to me; I was

misguided by parents. Now I see
they were wrong, but not my destiny, I need more time
to wait, maybe’’.
She was glad living year by year under bee-like vanity
and a hurried schedule
for sunshine, for peace of mind, for rest in soul, for a
lack of ridicule.

Year by year when the traces of the beauty began to

fade away
and to lose its charm and brightness was noticeable
miles away
she did not worry for even a second, omitting the
mirrors in array,
pointing out the unstoppable changes in motto: ‘’don’t
go away’’.

Going through the consummate attitude of her:’’ a sexy

body’’,
She preferred a peaceful dream on the clean
bedcovers, ever white and steady,
unpolluted by the sweat and muggy lust of a temporary
desire,
always ending with the choking of grey ashes after
bursts of an artificial fire.

Times goes, under her chosen loneliness, her daughter

got married,
the thoughts were occupied with the waiting for a
grandchild. A rare
moment of leisure again was linked with a peaceful
dream.
And she was happy, satisfied, pleased as it seemed.

There is no other way for a woman under any pretexts

to tread its way forward with a man’s help as context.
How everything is subjective, the bell rings
And plenty of imagination covers the woman’s lingerie.

She recalled the story: of her neighbour visiting

with kids her old mother the last four years (no time
limiting)
In the summertime for less than a month she pays a
parental debt
being native she behaves as a foreigner with manners
of neglect.

Especially to her as she was always impatient and

irritated
as she feels more and more each time, she gets an
aggravated
look, too naughty to surface on me longer than 5
seconds
that I am likely to cross the road rather than meeting
her in tet-a-tet rounds.

‘’Did your husband buy your dress?’’ ‘’Look at you …

his wallet is not empty, but not for you needs?
She said to me as if throwing into face rotten seeds.
‘’Why are you so slim? Does your husband feed your
well?’’
She remarked loudly as if I were at the bottom of the
well.
Next day me and husband took different ways he
workplace, me-aunt’s house.
How great my astonishment was when I saw a picture
as unexpected as a cat to a mouse:
In the yard left by us yesterday (in a rush escaping
unpleasant company)
the tree was laid unrooted as struggling in a wind and
war-like agony.

‘’Was it raining tonight? Not a drop on the bushes on

the road.
What happened? The tree marked the place where that
woman threw me overboard.
It fell exactly near the bench, the place of origin of
yesterday’s unfitting
offensive remarks to the innocent women of modest
behaviour and life settings’’.

A crocus blossoming through the snow

Her husband harshly throws to her words like a fruit of
a bad mood,
of a failed chance to row in today’s situation as a male
lion could.
Children ignored her favours puffing ears with wool,
playing in full,
She saw each day as a postponing of a cherished
dream left to be cooled and cool.

She was too patient, bearing a given fate and looking

through it with clear lenses,
cheering herself up with projects cemented tightly with
future tenses.
She was too tolerant waiting for her hour to come and
to strike!
She thought my life span is long and easy as to ride a
bike.

When life plans and distant dreams were finally

scheduled and weighted,
daughter called her, and she left her dreams for
tomorrow or the day after it.
Her daughter needed an arranging of a wedding
ceremony and entertaining entertain guests,
Her daughter asked to nurse her newly born daughter:
again, she forgot normal rest.

Duty and dear ones are sweeter than dreams too

unreal and bubble-like,
she was still optimistic: better to be on the earth than
under the earth (to like than dislike)
with one passion to add, she had a constant feeling
that she is willing
to give more than she is to take, and be fragile like an
apple after a sharp peeling,

having a deserved present that still as the burnt stones

scorches her hands,
making her doubt whether someone understands her
way of conduct and parlance,
with her adamant patience, she could bear the staying
with no roof above,
in a merciless wind and rain, on a snowy day with no
scarf and one glove.

For she as her village women whom she knew almost

from birth
similarly, proved that female heroic stoicism stays
firmly on the Earth.
The vicious circle of female gens: daughters are
preordained to bear
the silent witness of the loud accuser, likewise, the
hindrances never stir.

They are dragging the rural life blowing out dust to stay
clean
on the level it has traditionally been and is and will be
within.
What would be if one day she found herself among
urban ladies
too refined, too emotionally delicate, calling their pet-
doggies ‘’babies’’…

In her elderly age she recalled her life story

circumstances:
‘’ Lonely mum and girl with no father’ harsh words
bitter as lances.
She looked above with light green eyes with an absent
look on cloud that floats,
never dare to articulate, never succeed in choice
among all proposed roads.

The one, narrow path in the room with the curved walls
with one question at all
‘’Why should beauty be underlined, shown up and
presented as an item with parole,
like a key opening the door behind what one more
obligation is remained, bed:
insulted, smudged, and sweated she would take coins
thrown on the floor instead.

‘’ Don’t repeat my mistakes you will change your mind,

but it’ll be too late’’.
The similar cliché she got used to hearing. To close the
door and interior gate
She ignored the calendar date, mentally anchored with
juvenile air-like age
28 years old and its easiness …all before being
tramped in the cage.

But still after in the post-surveillance era she is still

dreaming
her daughter is close to her parents: she is a child, she
‘s always winning.
As an innocent bird, she carelessly jumps over broken
toys scattered around:
the small room with a shabby red carpet and one bed
and gaudy sound
of ancient-like clock strikes each hour punctually
playing ping-pong.
And no more, if only the sonorous laugh of her
daughter does not break the ding-dong
of the clock and its old conservative song. Speechless
daughter, the family outcast,
in fact, she was not suffering from melancholic moods
(that for long in mind tend to last).

She was involved in kitchen duties. (The depressive

ones that do not use energy in work with a knife.)
A family circle among women relatives too prying into
her private life
she had chosen a strategy of abstracting herself from
parochial prate,
but truly sympathetic ones were from neighbours
seeing the under rate.

The rare beauty that is unfairly lost in the vanity of

commonness and shallowness
of all surrounded her. She was not created for rebel,
but for patient endurance
and in this her ungrateful circle was gifted with the
invisible magnificent radiance,
that was not valued and totally ignored. The others
added valuable
ingredients: the packs with some clothes for her
daughter, some blankets for the cold nights row by row
from distant suburbs of well-established families who
were competing in charity’s grow
who found the poor pretty-eyed girl as a new stage in
changing the virtue’s variety
(the good actions are sometimes partly motivated by
the inborn impulse of anxiety).

‘’To be better than their neighbour’’ (or ‘’love your

neighbour ‘’rules?).
One day she came home with two heavy packets. ‘’
What is in them? ‘Tools?’’
‘’I do not know’’ she answered with a naïve tone.
Except curiosity there is not another theme.
‘’ I had four. I gave two to M‘’ a golden heart never any
cloud to dim .

‘’ What was inside? ‘’… ‘’ Look at Mother Teresa’s

heart! There are kid’s clothes and no less ‘’
‘’ You had let your child go nude and barefoot in the
winter …Yes M has four on her neck,
but she is not alone as you, man-hater, her husband
has a job, you have null in your shipwreck.’’
Her patience is limitless, silence helps in not
articulating the sense of unfair offense.

‘’Why are standing in front of the wicket reading a book

not entering in…Is it a new rule?
Are you ashamed of being beaten by dad or did you get
a poor grade at school? ‘’
Above all jokes, the right-hand and left-hand
neighbours got used to her peculiarities.
They explain in their own way: ‘’ She lacks a man; she
is a bit crazy. Oh, it is all her weirdness ‘’.

There is no natural predisposition in the place she was

living for snow to fall in full,
she lacks a sledge but each time she gets unexpected
items as gifts she was stuck in null,
having one thought in mind how she could pull the
sledge with undeserved things which was too full
under the attack of unwarranted shyness, hiding she
rolls herself up in the garments of wool.

‘’Do I deserve all I have?‘’ she tended to question

herself or abstract walls,
looking at the adjust scarcity of items of furniture in her
room, one piece of space that rolls,
all potential dreams and perspectives for the future in
one clod, no possessions on the globe,
for her now and tomorrow for she has a vaccination
against the instinct of assignment by any robe.

Anti-mercantile approach to things in her is not equal to

the loss of any self-interest,
by no means, above all proposed by the pressure of her
parents’ will and spirit of time at her best
she has been nourishing her own style of living: ‘’ I am
satisfied with everything in my way, in my hall,
in my wardrobe, in my wallet, with the addressed
words, pleasant or not, with the rise and fall
of my mood and its drifting between these two
extremes, but do not touch me with looks,
with calls to amusement another flesh but not mine,
with all false promises like ’’hooks ‘’.
‘’ What is the meaning of my ‘’ she is not weary of
asking the questions of any weight:
light as atom or heavy is meteor for her it is still worth
searching for the answer, it is not too late.

And so, all life long, from womb to grave, life can be
presented as line,
she went through biting, humiliation, and mocking in
the days’ pantomime,
her guided blessing was patience that cracked at the
seams,
she melted it tonight to stay firm along the new day’s
sunbeams.

She never asked for money to borrow, or anti-fever

drug
after a sharp solitude, in a restrained room in her 55
she got a rug
woven by herself as a peak of her repressed dreams, to
lay threads row by row,
finally, at the top ten shot an arrow from a long-
stretched bow.

She has managed at her surprise the junctions of the

unexpected matching
of colours, of hues, of aspects and not visible cores to
revive as a stretching
of the rarest kind closer to Aurora borealis, tints are
speechless tellers
about things’ inner thoughts, anticipations, and quasi-
fellows.