Arabic Music

 

Arabic Music

The Dog River is dry. Under historical plaques,

Arabs sit making rababas. One is playing softly

Sliding the bow across the horse hairs which are stretched

 Over a tight skin. They work with their eyes down,

Carving words into the necks. I want one and ask

how much, how much? None of them speaks. At the road

where we wait for a bus, an Arab brings me a rababa 

he has just finished.

We the telefrique across the bay up the mountainside

To Harissa where the Lady of Lebanon looks over the country.

 From a restaurant, I can hear an Arab in long black robes

beating coffee. He strikes his mortar in a rhythm

that makes my mother dance. She twirls her arms around

 my father's head.

I stand in my parents' village, looking down into Junieh Bay.

It is night. The stars are thick clouds and so close

I think I can reach up and write my name through them

with my finger. There are some lights in the ocean

and I can see Beirut to the left. Behind me the men

invent songs about their day, laughing at the rhymes

 they make. I hear a radio from a house and young chatter

But soon it is quiet, and I start my own small song.