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CITIES & CYNICS
by Len Webster
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JERUSALEM
This is the city of which we sang,
Of which we were encouraged to dream;
For which our hearts each missed a beat
As we thought of the mushroom clouds.
This is the city of many stories,
Including our own, quite modest one.
And, in memory, the people know our tongue,
A loose one but not without impact.
They fell in ones or twos,
And droves are buried here
Row on row, slope on slope
Beneath the land they fought upon.
You can rebuild, Jerusalem,
And do -
On high, from a distance, I sit and drink
Above their prostrate heads,
Watching the model city
With growing fingers and swinging cranes.
Yet it's not my prophet who dominates
But theirs, his time-eroded footsteps
Leaving no mark upon the stone
Except a Golden Crown and tiled facade.
THE ARMENIAN HILL FORT AT NAMRUN
A strident stir through dust and history,
Clambering, mistakenly, up forgotten paths,
I reached the summit among the mountains
And rested on stonework pillaged by generations.
The Elephant, majestic, stood above,
Its snow-clad rock hump melting
As a biting sun shone down.
The muezzin echoed in the valley.
Here the Cross was brought from far
Into another Promised Land
By another promised people,
A race much slaughtered and abused.
This was their weathered centre, near to heaven,
But, like all centres near to heaven,
It had to fall from grace
To be left as a testament to struggle.
Not for the first time, I reflect:
The course of history is the important fact,
The course of memory unclear,
The ruin much greater than the act.
(c) Len Webster 2004
e-mail contact: lenspoems@yahoo.ie
LINKS
Either click on a link below or on one of the pictures
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All black and white photographs from the Middle East
(c) Ian Galloway
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