in Genre - Hope PH 2021 (Poems) Poems - English Poems by Naomi

My Father, on Dialysis

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Wrote a book about Palestine called

Does the Land remember me ?

He wrote it in longhand on scraps of paper

as his blood filtered through the big machine

He was not afraid to watch it

circulate

Nurses and aides asked him

What are you doing?

He said, Planting a garden

Of almonds and figs

Dipping sprigs of mint into

glasses of steaming tea

breathing the damp stones

of my old city

pressing my mind into the soul

of an olive tree