Let us sleep
like the staircase
that once led up to the Temple Mount
no longer able to carry pious feet to prayer,
but the well experienced cracks
over which they once walked
expose the heavy burden
of well worn memories
under which we now slumber.
Sunrise from Masada.
The view from the casemate wall
of Silva's camp below.
Shadowy ghosts
are cast and scattered
and given voice as the wind
shouts through the buildings ruins
L'-he-rut Zi-yon
and there is no reply.
Only the songs of the Tristramit
who mimic the voices
of every child martyred here, singing:
*Shalom al Ziyon, Shalom al Ziyon"
and there is no reply,
only the dreams of the interrupted
and the disturbed peace
of excavated ruins.
L'herut Ziyon (Hebrew) is an inscription on coins of the Jewish First Revolt against the Romans (CE 66-73) meaning "for the freedom of Zion".
Tristramit is the Hebrew name for "Tristram's Grackle" Onycognathus tristramii described by Heinzel et al in The Birds of Britain & Europe; with North Africa & the Middle East as "Song sweet, wild and weirdly melancholy" (p. 302). It's a gregarious bird known to mimic sounds as well. Commonly seen in and around Masada as well as elsewhere in the Middle East. Named for H. B. Tristram a 19th century English traveler and naturalist.
"Shalom al Ziyon" (Hebrew) meaning "peace upon Zion".
This poem was originally published in 1990 in the New Zealand Jewish Chronicle's literary supplement with notes by Prof. Norman Simms of the University of Waikato.
