Let's Go Back to That

Red Brocade, by Naomi Shahib Nye

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
 
Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
 
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
 
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

Red Brocade is one of my favorite poems. Considering the number of poems out in the world from which I could choose, that is saying a lot. So I was thrilled when I learned the Academy of American Poets had chosen its author Naomi Shahib Nye as the recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. The award comes with a $100,000 prize. I expect that’s a welcome boost, poet not being one of those high paying professions as a general rule.

In Red Brocade, I am drawn to a world where strangers are welcome, where simple, basic hospitality forms the seeds of a whole new world. A world where people meet each other face-to-face. A world where we are quick to welcome and slow to judge. A world where we water each other’s horses, offer sustenance, hold out the special red brocade pillow, and snip mint into one another’s tea. A world where we offer that kind of hospitality and kindness not just to those we know or who feel familiar to us, but to strangers as well. I know I keep saying it over and over again, maybe so that I, myself, will hear: All we have is one another.

The past couple of weeks, the threat of fascism in America has occupied center stage in the news. This morning, Heather Cox Richardson’s blog described an Army memo that was published in 1945 to educate the armed forces about the fascism they were fighting against. “You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives because of a thing called fascism,” the pamphlet explained, and then it went on to define what fascism was. “Fascism is the precise opposite of democracy . . . Fascism is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” (You can read the whole pamphlet online: https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up?view=theater)

Germane to this blog post is the pamphlet’s discussion of how fascists gain power. In particular, the pamphlet notes that one of the first steps is to pit groups of people against each other, consigning some groups of people to inferior, contemptible status. Immigrants are “blood thirsty criminals,” “rapists,” and “animals,” who come from “prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions,” for example. This step accomplishes a couple of things. First, it removes power from the people by setting groups against each other so that they will not work in concert. “Divide and conquer,” as the saying goes. It also projects one group as superior and thus worthy of a position of power. “Real Americans,” for example. In a fascist system, one does not welcome the stranger. One does not offer hospitality to the unknown, the forgotten, the weary, the downtrodden, the afflicted, the other. In other words, the exact opposite of Red Brocade.

But guess what? One good thing is that we get to choose the kind of people we want to be. We get to co-create the kind of world we want our children to inherit. We get to choose to welcome the stranger, to offer the red brocade pillow.

A few years ago, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick commented, “We have learned to shout our anger and whisper our kindness — and it’s exactly upside down. We must learn again to shout kindness.” How exactly does one shout kindness, though? On the individual scale, I think it largely comes down to small gestures that arise from paying attention. If we pay attention, we might see who is tired and who is lonely. We might notice who is frightened and who is lost. If we pay attention, we might find, within our hearts and souls, that we possess ways to reach out. Ways to listen. Ways to offer comfort. Ways to be generous and welcoming.

Sometimes a kind gesture can be the simplest of things. These further words from Naomi Shahib Nye offer another expression of the world I want to see. This poem portrays the impact of simple kindnesses about as well as anything I could describe:

Gate A-4, by Naomi Shahib Nye

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
"If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately."

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help,"
said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him."

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

So much kindness. The flight attendants seeking help. Nye reassuring the distraught woman. All the people who answered the phone and chatted. The woman sharing her cookies. The free apple juice with two young children offering it around. The same powdered sugar dust covering one and all.

Yes, this can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. And that’s the world I want to live in, too. The shared world. Because, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, the fact is we live in a shared world. So, we may as well figure out ways we can demonstrate our sharing natures. We get to choose how to open our hearts to the world.

Love,

Sylvia

Sources:

(47) October 26, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up?view=theater

We watched 20 Trump rallies. His racist, anti-immigrant messaging is getting darker. - POLITICO