Shine

It’s hard to blind

when you aren’t made

of the sun.

Born brown, before I knew

what brown was, I soon found

out, learned what I could be.

I learned to love the yellow glow

of sand, wide-spreading over

my past — my dad

born in Jerusalem,

kept out of the city

by yellowed walls,

left with yellow sand

that stained his skin

and hardened it.

Yellow sand that stings

my eyes when I think

about his past, that clouds

the air, that buries like a shroud

his history and keeps it warm,

alive. There’s something of him

in me — I see it like a ghost

sometimes when

there are

no words;

then

I’m broken open

like the earth in flower,

& suddenly I breathe

new air, I glow,

I shine like light.