Salman Masalha — peculiarity in Jerusalem

I plucked this photo from Salman's website where he also blogs in English, Hebrew and Arabic his unique take on Israeli-Arab relations. In Iowa 2007, if you wanted to find Salman, you checked out the river bank where he was likely to be multi-tasking: monitoring duck behaviour and photographing butterflies, ducks in flight, or his own feet; smoking, and hosting a sort of riverside salon. At night he was the pinprick of red light beside the dark water. The other day he sent a love poem — not for me. For you.

Salman Masalha - self portrait | سلمان مصالحة - صورة شخصي

              Dreams

         …… To Rumi

        Beyond my door which faces west
        Lives a woman who'll never rest.

       She likes to tease my nomad soul
       With words she keeps for gloomy fall.

       But now she flies across the sky,
      And tries to find a place too high

      To paint it blue for me to look
      And tie my heart like horse to hook.

       I dive in blue or fly in beams.
       Some say it's love. I say my dreams.

                               Salman Masalha