Use this deep discomfort, this anxiety sprouting from your ruins within
Create.

-on seeing Yves Marchand's pictures of an
abandoned miners island near Nagasaki

What will remain of us,
industrious ants,
when all that we work for
comes to an end?

A dusty cupboard
in a murky corner.
Two empty bottles,
one for wine, one for apple juice.

No trace of our names.
Gone are the honours.
All that we strive for...
just thin air on an empty shelf.

It's peace again,
peace at last.
It's what we deserve,
our just reward.

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.

skin as soft as freshly washed sand,
the taste of salt upon my lips.
is it the same for you?
your eyes are the shards
of pale green glass strewn
along the beach,
wherever I go you watch me,
whatever I do you see.

like a prophet
wishing that only the best part
of his prophecy comes true,
I come to you, a faithful pilgrim,
head covered in the clouds
a galabiyya of air about my body.
I prostrate and entwine myself
with you in supplication,
like the finely knotted stitches
of a prayer rug
and I whisper that until you,
I had never been so religious.

your previous lovers
who cluttered their love with stone and mortar
will not be soon forgotten,
I who clutter you with words
am already,
like one breath following another.

all that I write on your skin
is washed out to sea
and returns on the wind
spread like the seeds of wild flowers
which grow among the rocky hills and ruins
like silent colorful pilgrims
up by the mosque of sidna 'ali
as the last remains
of a religion, and a memory,
and a love  and words.

Sands slip through my fingers,
sun scorched with dried blood
staining the palm where I wiped the blade.

I did not bleed. I did not bat my eyes
when his severed limb flew past my face.
My eyes opened wider and tasted victory
more intently than my screams
vanquished his memory.

I thought it was but an apparition on the sands
miles past; a haunting, a demon, a scorned lover
back for revenge now that I made off with valuables:
the fastest steed, the cave within me
where he stored his treasure when he pleased.

Thus when he appeared, when he charged by foot
and outstretched his arms (much smaller from my new height)
feebly, weakly to end me first, so he could brag to the village,
"She is like the women who believe they can fly."

I do fly
to my sword,
my hand unsheathes the blazing boiling metal.
With one sharp ting I watch his arm and the tiny dagger
sail across the desert and settle atop the sand,
gently gracefully, unlike his living, boasting words
would have wanted.

To the man who brought destruction in the depths,
where coolness and faithful waters dripped down the walls;
where no one dared near for fear of the One who is near me.

They will say warrior was born of ruins.
If they ask me, I will say, "Warrior is born of defeat no more."