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      June 19, 2016While Reading the News About Orlando, I Hear the Call to PrayerLeila Chatti

      Not metaphor, but outside
      the window, the muezzin
      calling from town, his voice faint
      as a phantom arrived in the room.
      How many times have I felt
      shame at those words—Allahu
      akbar—felt it twist
      like a knife inside me?
      Once, lonely, I listened
      for hours to recordings
      of the adhan through
      Macbook speakers,
      wept and knew myself
      in the presence of God.
      My God, during this all holy
      month, when I am so far
      everything back home
      seems like a dream, its violence
      only a wakeable sleep—
      where are you to refuse those
      who call out to you, who undo
      what you’ve made in your name?
      I am not asleep and they are
      not waking. Again there is blood
      on the floor in your name
      and there is no god
      but you, so answer.

      from Poets Respond

      Leila Chatti

      “I am currently in my second home, Tunisia, where I return each summer to visit my family. It is Ramadan and I was preparing for the evening meal (iftar), during which one breaks their fast, when I first read the news about Orlando. And as I was reading, the adhan—the call to prayer–came drifting in from town. I was so startled by the juxtaposition I had to sit for a long time. I thought of the line by Naomi Shihab Nye: ‘What does a true Arab do now?’ And what does a true Muslim do, too? I wrote this poem.”

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