detail: historic illustration: artist unknown
On a Hot Afternoon in
Jerusalem
by Stephen
Anderson
The
sun-parched face of an old Arab
crowned with a
kaffiyeh,
his
nicotine-stained fingers clutching
a smoking
Galloise,
peers directly
at the
photographer.
Is this a
survivor of untold losses,
of so many
blood-curdling mourning wails
of Arab women,
this very same
man who sips black coffee
sugared to
taste from a demitasse,
a sweet
companion to his cigarette,
a sure
soothing balm for desperate souls
in such toxic,
war-torn environments,
here during a sweltering
afternoon in the
calmer, narrow
lanes of a Jerusalem
where Arabic
words dance between
walls, then
flee, muted, into the open air?
Does he dream
too – that Allah
will some day
silence
gunfire
forever?
~ previously
published in The Silent Tango of Dreams
