Something a bit different...

Today, I found an interesting book entitled The Space Between Our Footsteps:  Poems and Paintings from the Middle East.  I haven't read much about the area except what the broadcast news tells us each evening, so I thought I'd take a look at this book to see what it had to offer. 

The first thing I looked at were the paintings included in the book--they are beautiful.  Done in various media, they illustrate various perspectives of life, and nicely accompany many of the poems included in this book.  The poems themselves are very descriptive, bringing vivid images of what life might be like there.  Here are a couple that I really liked:  

A Dream

When he surrenderd his eyes to the dream, this lad,
The evening star entered his house, trembling,
The wood of his bed turned into a ship for him,
The cosmos turned to an oyster in his hands. 

Muhammad Al-Ghuzziyusi
Translated by May Jayyusi and John Heath-Stubbs

The Space Between Our Footsteps:  Poems and Paintings from the Middle East (1998)  Nye, Naomi Shihab (selected by).  New York.  Simon Schuster Books for Young People.  Page 62. 

I love the imagery presented here--You can go anywhere and do anything when you are dreaming! 

Another one that I really liked was this one:

As I traveled from the city
toward the country
old age fell off my shoulders. 

Salah Fa'Iq
Translated by Patricia Alanah Byrne and Salma Khadra Jayyusi

The Space Between Our Footsteps:  Poems and Paintings from the Middle East (1998)  Nye, Naomi Shihab (selected by).  New York.  Simon Schuster Books for Young People.  Page 32. 

I've felt this way too, on our way to the family property in Cloudcroft, NM.  I always feel younger and rejuvenated when we get away from the stress of the city.

There are so many more examples of rich, descriptive language in this book that I can't list them all here.  The end of the book also has information about many of the poets included in this book of poetry.  It can help people learn more about the person who wrote the poem and learn of their background. 

I recommend picking up this book to share poetry from a place so different from our own, so that our children can know that inside, we really aren't that different at all.  You can find the book at Amazon.