Which Seeds Will Grow?
Poems
By (author) Andrew Calis
- ISBN: 9781640609532
- Trim size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches
- Pages: 96
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2024
- Format: Paperback
A new collection of poems by Palestinian-American Catholic poet Andrew Calis, Which Seeds Will Grow? finds hope in the Holy Land.
Grappling with his identity as a Christian Palestinian American, Andrew Calis recalls his father who saw Israeli jets swoop over his house in Jerusalem and a military helicopter fire bullets into his front yard. The same father who wouldn’t teach his children Arabic, for fear that they would have accented English, who kept his past close to his chest—unknown to his son. He recounts the death of his grandfather, a grandfather who would beat his father, and for whom he could not fully mourn because Arab men don’t cry.
Andrew Calis digs through the pain of his family and of his homeland to find the fragile seed of contained life and delicate hope for the Holy Land—and reflects on how tenderly that seed must be nurtured.
Steeped in wonder, Which Seeds Will Grow? explores the past and the present, from ancient Jerusalem to Baltimore’s gardens and alleys through the lens of a Palestinian American. The poems are patient, waiting for seasons to end, waiting for space to expand outward, and waiting for light to touch the earth. Despite the difficulty of waiting, readers will find hope in hopelessness and comfort in the contemplation of the world and its sacred mysteries.
From Which Seeds Will Grow?
Planting a Garden
Stealing clippings from neighbors’ yards
And smiling as they grew their own blooms
In the safe and hidden rooms where we
Keep watch on them like they are our children.
***
Nothing grew. We knew this was
A possibility, had read
It sometimes takes two years,
And we hoped in spite of only dirt
For the green that could be anything.
Perhaps we dug too shallow or too close
To the shade, or stepped where we had already planted,
Either crushing roots or breaking their curled
First shoots before they broke the surface.
***
So when one survived, wove a green line
Of its own, thinly sprouting something unknowable, I ran
Inside and for a moment felt
What John must have felt
Leaving Peter, old and unsteadily running,
And running breathlessly
To tell everyone —
Everyone
What had happened
And how you wouldn’t believe your eyes.
"Andrew Calis makes a strange, quiet music — about a dark world where love is the only refuge, the only light. His poems often place us in the shocked silent moment that is the aftermath of violence. Many are prayers to a God who can "split the dark / into a thousand things, each shining." They move the reader all the miles from horror to hope, sometimes in the course of a single line."
—Mike Aquilina, board chairman, International Poetry Forum, songwriter
"These meditative poems show a keen attunement to the subtle shades of tenderness and tension in family relationships, to perennial natural metaphors for the soul in all its seasons, and to the luminous, leaf-delicate, yet resilient quality of faith in a world torn by wars and troubles of every kind. Their speakers take courage in that faith which has overcome the world, while also honoring the hard work involved in carrying the weight of past, present, and future: a current home, a distant homeland, and an eternal city to come. This light, this courage, makes Calis's a voice worth amplifying."
—Katy Carl, Author, Fragile Objects
Which Seeds Will Grow sings, celebrates, and mourns the coming and going of the seasons—the seasons of the year and the seasons of life. These are poems about ordinary moments—mowing the lawn, taking a camping trip, watching the stars—that become conduits of grace. They are also poems about extraordinary moments—a near fatal accident, a man beaten and robbed, a father’s grief over his own dying father—that offer glimpses into the mysteries of family, the divine, and the nature of the human heart. “How many days /are left to us?” Calis asks. “Not enough,” his book answers. So savor each one you are given for the gift that it is. —Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, author of Still Pilgrim, Holy Land, and Dear Dante
Scattered about, some seeds surely fall on the road, some are choked by weeds, and others fall on good soil and sprout. The work of Calis’ weighty new collection is to see all of them—the bloomed and fruiting ones along with the choked and trampled—as a testament to the long, slow, and holy struggle toward cultural healing, nourishment, the light. —Mischa Willett, author of The Elegy Beta