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Ramadan corners
Corners folded, curved, stuffed
With minced meat, potatoes, peas
Spices galore
Platters upon platters, overflowed
To again feed the empty pangs of Ramadan
Another year tendered sustenance,
With memories yet to fill
Each dish embraced as savoury favourites;
Samosas, pakoras, dahi bara,
‘That Libyan soup with yum buttons’…
Engorged grape leaves smothered in olive oil,
With basmati morsels escaping wraps
Such blessings envelope our tastes
Satisfy our sting in appreciation
With memories filled
Another Ramadan, now an echo, my first;
A warm Mediterranean summer night
At a street cafe in Igualada
Underneath a slivered, faint moon
It was a lemon Schweppes, then another, and another
Which quenched my parched thirst
And gave my throat such an ache
With memories on the horizon
Of corners folded, curved, stuffed
And oh so many more memories yet to serve
From the dusky purple skies of Arizona then
Served from the jumbled, tumbled iftar lines
Semi-botched efforts of organizing
Depleted women with energetic children
Yet still, we ate, we laughed,
We sighed in that contentment of fill
From a hot, dry Southern Arizona fast
And we cleaned those dropped rice grains in no time flat,
Oh my! Did we clean!
How many vacuums did we break?
Then off
To pray To pray To pray
Afterwards, the long desert drive home
To stop for more nourishment
Dairy Queen’s Peanut Buster Parfait
Sitting in an extended, brown Chevy van
Across the universe of the Tucson landscape
With the dotted saguaros
Viewed atop the edge of our world
Bilby Road
When I mused
‘Quiet now… Shush… No radio… No noise
Roll your windows down
Eat your ice cream
Look at the stars
Now, close your eyes
Smell the mesquite, the creosote, the monsoon
Think’
An Arizona mother’s version of Taraweeh,
For those were memories to serve my children
But wait!
We must not forget the Muslim watermelon brother
He was like clockwork
Because along with everything else
Ramadan brings clockwork
To Muslims in need of suhoor
For the long sizzling day ahead
There he stood
One watermelon on each shoulder
To pay at 3 a.m.
At the same Alberston’s
Each night each night each night
While the same cashier was there
Each night each night each night
Finally, questioning our watermelon brother
Why? Every night? At the same time?
Who would of thought a watermelon
Which extinguished our thirsty mouths
Would turn to rinds of dawah
And gave us an abundance of overflowing platters
With corners, folded, curved,
And stuffed from memories served.
Maryam Mir
Maryam Mir is an Irish American Muslim story teller memoirist. She resides in Southern Arizona reflecting on the seasons of change. Maryam observes the renewal of desert beds of cactus needle growth and the blossoming of Mexican petunias in her garden. It is there she finds the power love has in being laced with verbiage. Her most cherished name to be referred to is "Grandmama."