And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2013

No Echo in Judea

22 No Echo in Judea As I drive south to Christ and Abraham, the tires speed the desert road before me back to Syria. The clocks have stopped. Only the sky turns modern when a jet veers eastward for Bombay. Below its powered wings stand sheep and Bedouin. The sun blinks at me from a donkey’s eye exactly as it blinked eight centuries ago on tribes of Arabs armed to purge the last crusader from Jerusalem. How many bones survive? How many skulls did Timurlane leave stacked in pyramids where Bedouin fork wheat against the wind and watch it fall. I squint for evidence. The deadness of the sea near Jericho unscrolls no secrets, and the sand endures for wind alone to sift and re-arrange and blow the smell of Briton, Frenchman, Turk and Mongol to the sun. The time is what it was when Sarah laughed the angel back to God. The shepherds wait for Christ. The tribes of Canaan graze their camels near the road I conquer like a new crusader armed with film and cigarettes. Nursed on the blood of Europe’s cross and Europe’s rack, I search for what was here before the world moved west. A donkey blinks. Bedouin cane their sheep. A child cries until his mother plumps 23 her breast against him, thumbs the nipple firm and plugs the blind mouth mute as history. ...