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| Hedy Habra |
Or Could I Finally Be Allowed to Leave My Analyst?
After Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst by Remedios Varo
I am leaving his office with my hair standing on end. No iPhone
at hand, or else that would have made a great selfie. I walk out
with a steady stride, tired of these useless sessions. After all, am I
not reconciled with my dark side? No more makeup to hide the
once-widening circles around my eyes: I’ll let the gray show on my
temples, allow my electric hair to rise and curl at will, catching
sunlight and moonbeams in its spires. I don’t need him anymore but
he doesn’t seem to know it. There’s still work to be done, he says,
wants me back over and over again. I have no more stories to tell,
no more foggy areas to recover, forge, and weld. Has he become
addicted to my voice, or does he see his own shadow reflected in my
dreams? See, this is the story of my life: analyzing instead of being
analyzed, entertaining instead of being entertained
The Taste of the Earth
Two fawns cross the creek. One of them pauses, linked
to his mirror reflection by the tip of his tongue, parallel
worlds merge on the fault line of a folded image.
A musical phrase sticks to your skin, the wind espouses
ripples, liquid dunes lick the shoreline, give moisture to
wild brush, blown over seeds and thoughts.
Iridescent hummingbirds hover over purple iris blooms.
The shore is faithful to the stream’s first touch. Like first
love, it nourishes tendrils rising into a green flame,
never forgotten like the taste of the earth. A desert thirsts
for an oasis, a fawn melts into the music of a fable,
a gazelle, new memories map rhizomes twisting,
anchoring us farther with each shoot spreading from our
birthplace to everywhere we’ve lived, to where we live
now, and does it make a difference if the root remembers?
Reading by Candlelight
Bent over the page, I watch the light of the candle cast fluid shadows,
the way the cypress pierces low clouds with its vertical green flame,
flaring will-o’-wisps spring from the spiral staircase of my
consciousness, ferns unfurl in slow motion, spread liquid color
at dawn as fronds fill spaces once covered with snow,
the hearth’s fiery tongues my cat and I watch flicker all night long,
the blue flame rising when I’d flambé cognac over crêpes suzettes,
the flicker of a match lighting a cigarette,
the infamous flames of a pyre or an auto da fe in a central square,
the flame of a candle I read about, lighting Camoens’ table,
his cat sitting on a pile of notes eyes gleaming at the waning wick,
the poet keeps writing in the dark under the light shed from the eyes
of his cat,
the tall flames casting a shadow-show of a couple’s encounter over
the walls of a cave,
flames rising from Beirut at night, as we watched from the mountains
during the civil war,
the flames of violence filtered by the TV screen, more virtual each day,
still color the news, images hiding the smell of blood and charred skin.
Hokusai’s The Great Wave
in wake of Fukushima, 2011
It is said Hokusai never intended to represent
a tsunami, but an okinami, a wave of the open sea,
erect, foam curling up its claw-crested fingers
over stunned boatmen surfing in reverence.
And I wonder what made that captive wave leap
out, release the dormant creature locked in
for centuries in shades of Prussian blue,
its delicate swirls spewing muddy torrents
over Fukushima’s shores, erasing in black ink
all shapes ever drawn, engraved or breathing,
its voracious appetite growing in silence, its heart
melting blackness into the heart of nuclear reactors.
What made it erupt like a maddened volcano
famished for blood, steel teeth crushing tiles, wood,
metal, belching in a roar engulfing homes, cars,
boats, buses, men, women, children, newborn,
unborn, all swept like broken twigs and fallen leaves,
carrying seeds that will not grow for seasons to come.
The wave of the open sea now speaks in tongues,
each curve, a threat, its filigree lines and blue hues
seem steeped in lethal pigments. In the print’s empty
spaces, spirits hold their breath, dotted droplets
filled with suffocated, inaudible voices, whisper:
Remember me, I no longer have this beautiful skin.
Remember the light that came out of my eyes.
Remember my story never to be told.
Remember my smile, my hands, my dreams.
Hokusai, your okinami has lost its innocence.
The Apple of Granada
Some say Eve handed a pomegranate to Adam, and it makes sense
to me. How can the flesh of an apple compare to the bejeweled
juicy garnets, the color of passion, hidden under its elastic pink skin
tight as an undersized glove, a fruit withholding the power to doom
and exile since the dawn of time. For a few irresistible seeds, didn’t
Persephone lose sight of the sun for months? I mean, think of the
mystery hidden in its slippery gems, of the sweetness of the tongue
sealing the union with the beloved in the Song of Songs. And I
succumb, despite how messy it is to crack the fruits open, invade that
hive, oblivious to the indelible droplets splattering the sink, reaching
beyond the marble counter all over my arms and face, as my
fingertips delicately remove its inner membranes, until the bowl is
filled with shiny ruby red arils. I add a few drops of rose and orange
blossom water, the way my mother did, and my grandmother used
to do, and her mother before her.
Bricolage
Go every day a little deeper
into the woods, collect acorns,
twigs, thorns, fallen leaves,
pine needles, a fern's curl,
a bird's nest, a lost feather,
spring air, hot, humid air, a raindrop,
a touch of blue, a ripple,
and why not the hush
of your steps over moss,
the trembling of leaves
at dusk against black bark?
Put it all in a bag and shake it:
you will retrace your steps
within the clearing, hear frightened
flights, see the rain darken the deck,
flatten oak leaves, silence songs,
answer the root's mute prayer.
Bio
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. Her latest poetry collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?, won the 2024 International Poetry Book Awards and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer and USA Best Book Awards. The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award, and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. A twenty-four-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award, her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies.Hedy Habra
