The Old
City: from 1968- 2023
by Ellen Mass
The donkey clik claks
on Middle Eastern cobblestone
carrying workman’s
tools, belongings
down spice-filled
passages. I meander until lost
among an ancient
culture divided from
my semitic humanity,
here in old city of Jerusalem
I once knew well,
in route to my Arab Armenian family who welcomed me with
Mediterranean mint
dishes, in closeness with suppressed awareness
of centuries of west
hostilities
among Aramaic
speaking Jews, Muslim Arabic language
savoring tiny stone
stalls, red green and black Palestinian kafias
ambling passionate
with Lover to eat pigeon and roasted bulgur -
deep within old dark
dampened City walls from Roman times,
stands of fresh kill
meats, bright colored souvenirs
but eager maalik faces for dirham deals
and few tourists.
Qasid secrets, a skilled Eastern haggle,
my western bargain
custom shunned.
Muslims disdain this
delighted face:
foreigner, Anglo-colonial --
no friend to Arab
Islamists and Christians.
Explosive Israeli lid
kept tight and simmering
after victory of
eye-patched commander --
century’s anger held firm by soldiers till
October 7,
when resounding shock waves heard around the globe
piled rubble stories
high - childrens’ cries from severed lives
before any sweet
laugh could be heard.
unfelt by we of daily city bustle,
mindless
of the small child’s exact demise.
We paid to execute
the innocents
over and over, you and me
with ever greater
munitions and proxy vengence.
Young naive girl,
I planted trees over
the Arab villages with mom’s wish,
hiding our sins under
B’nai Brith stories of magic lands.
Now safe and sound
around me, I hear their wails,
see the ancient Souks
while holding my Goldsmith lover
crafting my lost 24 k
hair barrett - Al-abjadiyah flowing letters
shining with
brilliant culture,
I visit the old city
again in my dreams
awakened by powerful
remorseful blasts
as Palestinian
families are exterminated,
as were the Jews,
greeting their merciful Allah Akbar.
We can remember them all in Muqawama*
*resistence
