Lisa Suhair Majaj Quotes

Remember the splintered staccato
of bullets against rock, the way dust rose
in the stunned aftershock of silence?

consider a delicate porcelain bowl
how it crushes under a single blow-
in one moment whole years disappear

Today his words surround me
with the quiet intensity of growing things,
roots planted a long time ago
lacing the distances of my heart.

consider the infinite fragility of an infant's skull,
how the bones lie soft and open
only time knitting them shut

The sun will rise again tomorrow,
vigilant and weary as hope.

soon syllables will fall from her lips
the first rain

See how we save even the broken bits of pottery,
fitting fragments together
along jagged lines to remember you

Part of it hides behind the headlines
where this shard of the story will never be told.

No matter how far you've come, remember:
the starting line is always closer than you think.

Once she could have held anything steady
and safe: a glass of tea, her brother's baby.
Now her hands shake at the weight of a fork.

My writing process is generally a bit haphazard. I carry notebooks around to capture ideas, observations, phrases, images, chunks of freewriting. I shift to the computer to do more substantive writing and work on craft issues. I always generate multiple drafts of pieces (keeping all drafts in a separate folder), and often experiment with form in different versions to see what fits the text best.

I find inspiration in anything that sparks attention and emotion and associations—an object, a news article, a natural scene, a sound, an odor. Going for walks sharpens my awareness as well as freeing my mind to wander. I think losing my parents so early, and keeping so many mementos from them around me in my daily life, helped shape my understanding of how meaning is embedded in the simplest of things. I use potholders my mother crocheted, keep my dad’s paperweight on my desk, and think of them daily.

Now we walk out into the tunnel of days
and a million memories rustle

till the moon rises,
the night opens,
and all the stars shine out.

Who knew the past would follow us so far,
years collapsing like an ancient accordion,
scraps of memory tucked like torn photographs
into the sockets of our eyes?