Advent poems 18: Ways of Rebelling, by Natalie Handal

Anthony Wilson, ,

 

Ways of Rebelling
Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die a  few  times  each day to understand your father’s sky, as you take it apart piece  by  piece  and can’t feel  anything,  can’t  feel the tree growing under your feet, the eyes poking night only to find another night to compare it to. Whoever   heard   of   turning   pain   into   hummingbirds   or   red  birds — haven’t  we  grown?  What  does  it mean to be older?  Maybe a house with-out  doors  can  still  survive  a  storm. Maybe I can’t find the proper way to rebel  or  damn it,  I can’t  leave.  I want to,  but you grow inside of me. And as  I  watch   you,  before  I  know  it,  I’m  too  heavy,  too full  of  you  to  move.
Maybe  that’s what they meant when they said you shouldn’t love a country too much.
Nathalie Handal, The Republics (University of Pittsburgh Press), 2015.

 

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Published by Anthony Wilson

I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, was published in 2023 by Blue Diode Press. Plymbridge, a new pamphlet, is available now from Worple Press. My current research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.

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