Final Analysis

When I first read "Meeting at an Airport" by Taha Muhammad Ali. I thought that it was about to ex-lovers that found each other again. I was pretty confused about why the girl would cry if she saw her ex at the airport because most girls would completely ignore him. But maybe that's just immature, high school girls but still most people wouldn't be extremely happy about seeing their ex again. So then I got to thinking about maybe the couple was split apart forcefully and that is why they are so happy to see each other. It was also apparent that they hadn't seen each other for a really long time because of this quote from the poem, "…A question/now four decades old:/I salute that question's answer;/an an answer/as old as your departure" (Ali 20-25). So it has been at least forty years since they have last met so that quite a while. But the theory of them being spilt apart seemed to fall apart because it says that she departed. The defination of departure is "the action of leaving" so by that quote and that word it would seem that she willing left him which leaves a lot of questions to be answered.  

Once I did research into the poet's past did I finally find out what the poem was really about. Ali was born in a village near Galilee in the Israeli region. The Israelis attacked and completely destroyed his village so him, his family and his bride-to-be Amira went to Lebanon. A while later Ali and his family returned to Israel but Amira got stuck in Lebanon. So with no hope of ever seeing her again Ali married another women and started a family. A long while later the poet decided to see if he could find Amira again so with help from a friend he located Amira. They met up at an airport and the poem is about when they met again forty years after they were split apart. That was pretty awesome that the whole poem was based on a real life event so that definitely made analyzing it a lot easier. Yet in some ways harder because it's pretty black and white to what the poem is about so it's harder to think creatively or deeply about the metaphorically meaning. My thoughts about the poem changed a lot over the course of the project because at first I thought that it was a stupid lovey dovey poem about how your true love will always find you again. But as I found out it was about love, peace, war, violence, hatred, loss and finding.

Poem

Meeting at an Airport
By Taha Muhammad Ali

You asked me once,
on our way back
from the midmorning
trip to the spring:
"What do you hate,
and who do you love?"

And I answered,
from behind the eyelashes
of my surprise,
my blood rushing
like the shadow
cast by a cloud of starlings:
"I hate departure…
I love the spring
and the path to the spring,
and I worship the middle
hours of morning."
And you laughed…
and the almond tress blossomed
and the thicket grew loud with nightingales.

…A question
now four decades old:
I salute that question's answer;
and an answer
as old as your departure;
I salute that answer's question…

And today,
it's preposterous,
here we are at a friendly airport
by the slimmest of chances,
and we meet.
Ah, Lord!
we meet.
And here you are
asking--again,
it's absolutely preposterous--
I recognized you
but you didn't recognize me.
"Is it you?!"
But you wouldn't believe it.
And suddenly
you burst out and asked:
"If you're really you,
What do you hate
and who do you love?!"

And I answered--
my blood
fleeting the hall,
rushing in me
like the shadow
cast by a cloud of starlings:
"I hate departure,
and I love the spring,
and the path to the spring,
and I worship the middle
hours of morning."

And you wept,
and flowers bowed their heads,
and doves in the silk of their sorrow stumbled.

Meeting at an Airport

The Interview

I grab a copy of my poem and run out the door, I'm late. It's a nice spring day, a really hot spring day. As I start walking across the street I see my across-the-street-diagonal neighbors cutting a freakishly large amount of wood in the middle of their front yard with a circular saw. Having absolutely no clue what that's about I keep walking. I get to about the middle of the road when I realize that I forgot shoes and black pavement is really, really hot. I run the rest of the way across the street. I walk to the front door, past the well kept lawn, pots of flowers and a ceramic frog sitting on a rock holding a welcome sign. I reach the front door and ring the doorbell. I can hear the grandfather clock themed bell echo through the house. As I wait I stare contemplatively at the frog trying to decide whether his smile is creepy or cute. I was leaning towards cute when the heavy, wooden door whooshes open. I look up and smile at the familiar face of my neighbor, Ms. Hessilus.

She's wearing a button-down white shirt with bunches of red and blue flowers and a red coral necklace that matches the red on her shirt perfectly. She says that that she hasn't seen me in a while then corrects herself and says that she has seen me just not talked to me. I agree and say that it has been quite a school year. Luckily she doesn't notice my lack of shoes. She leads me past the grandfather clock, through the hall and to the kitchen table where we sit across from each other. The room smells of baking and general cleanness.  There's a purple vase of purple and yellow fake flowers in the middle of the table which I gently move to the side. We make small talk at first in which she asks about my sister and her impending graduation and the family in general. When we are almost ready to begin I explain the assignment to her. I get my handy-dandy phone out and press the record button. The interview is ready to begin.

I ask her to read the poem I have been studying and slide the copy of the poem across the table to her. As she reads I hear the gentle hum of her refrigerator and stare out the window at the cars, thinly veiled by trees, rushing past on the main road behind her house. She looks up from the poem and asks if it's suppose to rhyme. I say no it's not because it is a free verse poem. She goes back to reading and I go back to staring out the window. After a while the window gets boring so I study the tablecloth. The tablecloth is vinyl with various herbs drawn and labeled on it. I look up when she pushes the paper back across the table saying that it was a interesting poem but it had a cliff hanger ending. Having read the poem plenty of times I know it did not so I ask if she knew there was a second page. She didn't know. The paper slides back across the table to her and the reading continues. I study the tablecloth again and learn that the makers of the tablecloth consider mint tea to be an herb. I search for mint but it isn't on there. Mint tea it is then. When I look up she is done reading the poem.

I ask her what she thought of the poem. She says that it is different and that she has not read a poem like this before. I ask her what she means. She means that all the poems that she is use to are rhyming and this one isn't. I ask if she finds anything confusing about the poem and she says that she didn't follow the story. I say that the author's backstory might help since the poem is based on a very real event from his life. So I explain Taha Muhammad Ali's story with Amira, his bride to be, the burning of his village, the border crossing, the border crossing back, him leaving Amira and finally him seeing Amira again. When I finish she says that the poem now is like the ending of a perfect romance movie and that she loves seeing people reunited. I agree and ask if the poem is confusing anymore and she says no the story cleared it up. So we talk more about Taha's life and poems and romanic movies. I pitch her the idea for my metaphor and item which she approves. The interview is over.

Poem Research

Taha Muhammad Ali was born and raised in a village in Galilee. Then at seventeen he and his family fled their village because of the Arab-Israeli War. They fled to Lebanon but a year later he returned with his family and settled in Nazareth. In Nazareth he ran a souvenir shop during the day and study poetry at night. He wrote about his childhood and the conflicts he had survived. He was self-taught and published poems in English and Arabic. His first collection of poetry in English was published in 2000. Taha Muhammad Ali died in 2011at age 80.

My poem "Meeting at the Airport" by Taha Muhammad Ali is about his past fiancee, Amira. When he escaped to Lebanon Amira came with him but when he went back to settle in Nazareth, Amira stayed in the refugee camps in Lebanon. The poem is about when years later Ali manages to find Amira again with help of a friend. He meet her in the airport but she doesn't believe that it really is Taha. So she remembers a question that she asked him in their youth and asks it to him then. He answers correctly and she is overcome with emotion because at this point both of them are married with children and they can never be together. Though it actually happened Amira represents Taha Muhammad Ali's homeland and how it is now lost and how the past is in the past.

Work Cited

http://theamericanscholar.org/the-lost-village/#.U3UHjv12qbA

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/3181/12/Taha-Muhammad-Ali

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/taha-muhammad-ali

Siddhartha

Everyone must journey through life. Everyone has a different path and a different goal in their lives but the one fact that remains the same is that everyone has someone or something to help them down the road of life. For some people this may be a person or animal. For others it may be a intangible thing like a god or in Siddhartha case, a word. His whole life Siddhartha is searching for peace and salvation from Self. He tries to seek refuge in religions and lifestyles until he realizes that it is simply not enough. Though many people help him along the way, Om is the thing that helps Siddhartha complete his journey to find peace.

First and foremost, Om is at the start of Siddhartha's journey and at the end of the journey when he finally achieves peace. At the beginning of the book Om is first introduced which is seen in this quote, "He [Siddhartha] had mastered Om, the Word of the Worlds" (Hesse 3). This proves that Om has been with Siddhartha almost his entire life, his the beginning of his journey to forget Self. Also it refers to Om as the word of worlds meaning that it is the sound that ties all the worlds together. Om also prods Siddhartha to go on the journey, Siddhartha realizes that he is not happy with his life yet at this point is unwilling to do anything about it. Until he meditates speaking Om does he realize that he will never find peace on another's path. "Thus he sat, cloaked in samadhi, thinking Om, his soul an arrow on its way to Brahman" (Hesse 8).  Om helps him to start the physical journey to find peace because while he is meditating he decides to he should start on his own path. Of course at this point Siddhartha has already started his spiritual journey but he just has yet to start his physical journey. Om is the thing that helps him find peace. "…the the great song of the thousand voices consisted only of a single word; Om, perfection"(Hesse 114). When he finally completes the cycle his journey he's actually right where he started knowledge wise the only thing that changed was Siddhartha's outlook on life. Which is kind of sad that Siddhartha traveled away from his home and away from his family just to find the answer to his peace was inside him the whole time.

Om also saves Siddhartha from killing himself and from his unfulfilling, worldly life. When Siddhartha comes across the child people all he wants is to find peace but instead he finds something else he wants, Kamala. This completely derails his path to

Poem

Meeting at an Airport
 TAHA MUHAMMAD ALI

You asked me once,

on our way back

from the midmorning

trip to the spring:

“What do you hate,

and who do you love?”

And I answered,

from behind the eyelashes

of my surprise,

my blood rushing

like the shadow

cast by a cloud of starlings:

“I hate departure . . .

I love the spring

and the path to the spring,

and I worship the middle

hours of morning.”

And you laughed . . .

and the almond tree blossomed

and the thicket grew loud with nightingales.

. . . A question

now four decades old:

I salute that question’s answer;

and an answer

as old as your departure;

I salute that answer’s question . . .

And today,

it’s preposterous,

here we are at a friendly airport

by the slimmest of chances,

and we meet.

Ah, Lord!

we meet.

And here you are

asking—again,

it’s absolutely preposterous—

I recognized you

but you didn’t recognize me.

“Is it you?!”

But you wouldn’t believe it.

And suddenly

you burst out and asked:

“If you’re really you,

What do you hate

and who do you love?!”

And I answered—

my blood

fleeing the hall,

rushing in me

like the shadow

cast by a cloud of starlings:

“I hate departure,

and I love the spring,

and the path to the spring,

and I worship the middle

hours of morning.”

And you wept,

and flowers bowed their heads,

and doves in the silk of their sorrow stumbled.