Fuel
Even at this late date, sometimes I have to look up the word "receive." I received his deep and interested gaze. A bean plant flourishes under the rain of sweet words. Tell what you think—I'm listening. The story ruffled its twenty leaves. * Once my teacher set me on a high stool for laughing. She thought the eyes of my classmates would whittle me to size. But they said otherwise. We'd laugh too if we knew how. I pinned my gaze out the window on a ripe line of sky. That's where I was going.
Credit
From Fuel. Copyright © 1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Published by BOA Editions, Ltd. Used by permission of the publisher.
Author
Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit.
Date Published: 1998-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/fuel