Mimesis
by Fady Joudah
My daughter
wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord
If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking
She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?
From Alight, Copper Canyon Press, 2013. Reprinted with permission. Available from Amazon and your local bookstore.
Young people have the uncanny ability to distill what we believe are complex concepts into the simplest, most relatable human terms. The speaker’s daughter in “Mimesis” clearly does this, and with nothing more than a sincere question asked at the end of the poem: “that’s how others/Become refugees isn’t it?” With those few words spoken in defense of a spider, she calls us all into a greater empathy with the world that we might not have realized was possible. This poem feels more timely than ever as it captures an everyday domestic scene that manages to ask larger, more challenging questions about human action and reaction. The scene turns more and more universal as we reach the final lines, and that young woman’s wise words become applicable not only to wars and the occupation of other countries, but also to the countless smaller ways we often seek to eradicate living things (and indeed so much of nature) from our lives. Though we may at times have to take action to keep animals and insects from taking over our homes, this poem asks us also to pause and experience at least a moment of empathy for the beings whose homes we might be disturbing or destroying in the process.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What living things in your own daily life do you often look past or brush away, and which you might work to include more fully in your own sense of compassion and empathy?
Photo: Cybele Knowles
ABOUT THE POET: FADY JOUDAH
Fady Joudah is a Palestinian-American physician, poet, and translator. He was born in Austin, Texas, but grew up in Libya and Saudi Arabia. Joudah’s debut collection of poetry, The Earth in the Attic (2008), won the 2007 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, chosen by Louise Glück. Joudah followed his second book of poetry, Alight (2013), with Textu (2014), a collection of poems written on a cell phone where each piece is 160 characters long. His fourth collection is Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance (2018) and his newest is Tethered to Stars (2021). In 2014, Joudah was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. Joudah lives with his family in Houston, where he serves as a physician of internal medicine.
POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
FURTHER EXPLORATION
Thank you for reading. Please enjoy these works by Fady Joudah. A portion of all online purchases through the links below goes to support Gwarlingo. You can also look for them at your local bookstore.
Thanks to hundreds of readers who have given donations big and small, Gwarlingo remains ad-free. Donors who give $50 become members. If you love Gwarlingo, please consider giving back.
