Crucifixes of Beit Sahour

The serenity I know
resides in my bones.
I learned this through the most submissive actions.
In the hand that greets,
the foot that stands,
and the shoulder that carries.
Tell it like a story
or an anecdote
or a tragedy,
it doesn’t matter.
The story maker never becomes a stranger
and that is your consolation.
Say that a woman
refrained from greetings and standing up
because, for her, isolation was a greater trial
than loss or abandonment
and because her bones
housed her quiet.
Though she did go out on Sundays to dispel it,
hammering nails in Beit Sahour
for oakwood crucifixes.

                                     —Nablus

Read more from our series by Palestinian poets.