Only one stone is used
for the buildings of Jerusalem.
Native rock of this land,
I speak to you.
Your long-withstanding
and broken face,
is everywhere here:
A face that is a crypt of
civilizations.
Your pores like eyes
squinting in the sun,
witnessing from
your dense silence.
Could the sum of
reverent visitors
and mortared prayers
know the apocalypse
petrified inside you?
You are the teeth of the skyline
speaking out in different tongues:
a ferment of sweet and hardened voices,
of calls, prayers and curses
commingling in a dissonance –
a drone of unresolved diversity.
Stone of Jerusalem,
your body – colors of flesh –
pink and white, ochre and tawny –
lifted from your calcified
underground sea, carved into bricks.
Brick upon brick —
foundation stones
upon which the Holy Temples,
churches and mosques
aspire to bridge earth to heaven.
Bring down the prophets!
I want to see them – all of them –
from posts of different times,
gathered together here
speaking in tongues of light –
hands beaming upon one another,
each giving honor to one another,
rejoicing in glorious communion,
joined with echoing choirs of Hallelujah.
What is hard in us will someday
turn to stone.
What is light will rejoin the stars.