Birds

 On Thursday afternoon, two young men—really they were boys still—were killed not far from where I’m sitting, both of them unarmed, both of them shot in the heart by Israeli soldiers. Their names were Nadim Nawara and Mohammad Odeh. I went to their funerals, listened to their loved ones wail. I’ve been writing about it all day, will post a link when the article goes up. I’ll try to remember to. But I wanted to say that I spend a lot of time here watching birds. Not with any expertise, not trying to identify them—though for the record, I mainly see starlings, swifts, pigeons, crows, parrots—just watching them fly, roost, fly, listening to them chatter and sing, wondering what they are talking about and what think about us humans here below with all our dramas, fighting, killing, dying, carving up the land. If they think about us at all. I prefer to believe that they do not. The birds above are frigate birds. I shot the video far away, on another continent, where they are, I hope, still flying.

Outside the falafel shop

For two days it rained. Unseasonably, I should say. “Yes, the weather is changing,” people nod, as if the climate were a football team, or someone else’s hair. But the rain was welcome. The air was crisp today and yesterday and outside the city the hills are greener by a notch. Everyone seems a little brighter. Our outlines feel less hazy. Of course the dust is already coming back. In the meantime, delightful things are showing up in gutters. 

Soccer

late afternoon, Umm al Kheir, about a week ago

Washing the Sheep

Umm al Khair, May 1

Happy Easter

"It's difficult to tell the truth, since there is only one truth, but that truth is alive and therefore has a lively, changing face."

—Kafka, Letters to Milena