Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/weekly-poem-cinco-de-mayo Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Weekly Poem: ‘Cinco de Mayo’ Arts May 7, 2012 1:51 PM EDT By Naomi Shihab Nye If this is your birthday and you are dead, do we stay silent as the sheet you died under? No. You always talked. Here’s a thick white candle whispering. Pour birdseed into feeders. Speak up, speak up. Tell me where they go, my friend said, in the same pain. I touched her shoulder. Here, right here. You’re closer than you ever were — takes a while to know that. Every scrap of DNA, he’s listening. There’s a way not to be broken that takes brokenness to find it. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author of several books of poems, including most recently, You “Transfer” (BOA Editions, 2011) and “Yours” (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. Watch the NewsHour’s profile of Nye here. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now
By Naomi Shihab Nye If this is your birthday and you are dead, do we stay silent as the sheet you died under? No. You always talked. Here’s a thick white candle whispering. Pour birdseed into feeders. Speak up, speak up. Tell me where they go, my friend said, in the same pain. I touched her shoulder. Here, right here. You’re closer than you ever were — takes a while to know that. Every scrap of DNA, he’s listening. There’s a way not to be broken that takes brokenness to find it. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author of several books of poems, including most recently, You “Transfer” (BOA Editions, 2011) and “Yours” (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. Watch the NewsHour’s profile of Nye here. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now