Syria

Springfire and the air is dizzy

With jasmine and damask rose.

I carry my lives about with me,

Fossil molluscs from under the Thetys Sea,

Scattered across the desert.

Stare into black basalt’s grains,

And know that the world is nothing

But a donkey’s droppings.


The hurried perish, and the patient endure.

After forty years the Bedouin took revenge,

Remarking, “I have been quick about it.”

Eagles circle over the Cities of the Dead,

Over abandoned houses and churches,

In the limestone ghost-hills,

While waterwheels on the Orontes

Turn and turn, ploughing the river.

Thirty-six years the Stylite roosted

On his pillar,among the pines,

Meticulously counting each prayer

Offered to the magnesium sky.


What does the head of John the Baptist-

The head of Al-Hussein-

Prophesy,buried in the Great Umayyad Mosque?

Temple of Jupiter, Temple of Hadad,

Continuity of sacrifice,

Suras in stone and flesh.

(Can that day be far off when Jesus

Will descend from his watchtower here

To do battle with the Antichrist?)

Through Paradise itself the Barada river

Flows,through orchards and groves,

With bridges and pavilions built

By Byzantine and Syrian craftsmen.

There lies Saladin in his tomb,

That man of honour and justice

Who never fought unless he had to

And accumulated no fortune for himself.

No sooner was his body in the grave

Than his empire was squandered, divided,lost.


In the Medical Museum,observe

The hanging pipes whose soothing sounds

Were used to pacify the lunatics;

What tune will you play upon Al-Farabi’s lute?

From which mountaintop will you launch yourself

In Ibn Firnas’s flying machine?


Mosaics from Apamea,

Wondrous as the five hundred fighting elephants

Who were slaughtered,all of them,in the end,

As part of a peace treaty :

Socrates presides over his own Last Supper,

Six disciples seated round him

As he holds up his right hand to bless;

Amazons on horseback gallop,

Hunting tigers with superb élan.


Krak des Chevaliers.Walls never breached

But taken,eventually,by trickery.

Ages of ingenuity, labour and faith

Invested in conquest and war!

Saracen and Christian, exchanging blood,

Sacrificed to the same God,

Yehovah, Allah, Baal, Shamash.