Adonis Diaries

I Liked Nous

 

I need nous, of yester years

Together, an extended family.

 

I liked nous, children and growing up,

Way before we became professionals,

Married with children,

Sparsed in the five corners of the world.

 

I am cozy within my new nous,.

A very restricted family,

Of a new generation who abhors extended families..

A new generation who gets busy when visited,

Some hide in the attic finishing a much delayed project,

Some locked in the computer room riveted to a stupid monitor.

 

I am reading the title and the first “stanza” in my dream;

“I like nous of yester years

Together, an extended family”.

I woke up at four in the morning, read a book for an hour,

And I went back to bed.

 

I remember in the dream the four of us cousins sitting around a table,

Jihad, Hassib, Nassif, and I.

It was morning in a well lit room, pretty untidy.

Jihad was reading a newspaper, sipping his cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.

Hassib was at the other side of the rectangular white table, a pipe helping his readings.

He was restless, acting unperturbed, aloof, and an English.

 

Nassif was cheerful, carefree, not self-centered, an uncharacteristic Nassif.

Nassif was reading, on a white napkin, a piece of poem to himself,

A napkin like the one used in Pizza Huts.

He might have guessed the poem was meant to Hassib by me.

Nassif handed Hassib the poem who faked to be unconcerned.

 

Then, while I was chatting with Nassif, the “Englishman” reads the poem and laid it aside.

Nassif is flipping through pages of computer papers,

Papers printouts we used at the time;

Computer statements were inputted on punch cards.

Nassif says “This is beautiful” and let me read a few scribbled lines on the greenish printout.

I said “This is my handwriting. I don’t remember having written these lines”.

 

I was reading the title and the first stanza.

I woke up from my dream.

I like dreams;

They are funny is their extremes

Of colors, sounds, intensity, and emotions.

A sweet dream, sweet nous, of now grown ups.