Poetry , Audio

Arabs in Finland

by  Naomi Shihab Nye
Hot tea
Photo by Kables/Flickr

Their language rolls out, 
soft carpet in front of them.
Strolling slowly beneath trees, 
men in white shirts, 
belts, baggy trousers,
women in scarves,
glinting cigarettes in the dusk.
What they left to be here, in the cold country,
where winter lasts forever,
haunts them in the dark –
golden hue of souk in sunlight,
gentle calling through streets that said, Brother,
Sister, sit with me a minute, on the small stool
with the steaming glass of tea. Sit with me.
We belong together.


Laureate of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature in 2013, Palestinian American writer, editor, and educator Naomi Shihab Nye grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she continues to live. She has been Young People’s Poet Laureate for the US, poetry editor for the New York Times Magazine and Texas Observer, and a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities all over the world. Her volume 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award. She received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Texas Institute of Letters and the National Book Critics Circle.

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