Qal'at el Bahr
For Yara
I found in James Gilchrist's
guidebook, the fortress
by the sea, with two towers,
left after the fall of Christ
iandom, after the Winter
of 1227, and a cedar leaf
serves as a bookmark,
the scene is in mono
chrome, one prominant
wave, a white fish fillet
across the sea, and the
sky gradations of grey
seem like a mark
rothko
hanging
low
and the breakwaters
fringe the promentary
from Qal'at el Bahr
I imagine the Phoe
nicians, and how
the place was Hellen
icized, maybe you
stand there drinking
coke, the ice cube
bobbing up and down
in the glass, reflecting
the arrival of the Moslem
force, and fishing boats
sail through chronologies,
like Alma-Tadema's
heroines
leaning on classicism
waiting for the arrival
of their Hansom Cabs,
and someone waits for
the poets to travel
to
the Fortress by the Sea
a Cavafy from Egypt
writes of the erotic
and the lemon tree
of the water carrier
and then the Yeats
with his inevitable
Byzantium, bums
a lift from Homer
all oriental
ism
comes by sea
and the fishing boats
laden with metaphors
and images borrowed
and exploited, plundered
from the Middle East,
bring them
to
Yara.
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