At midday I finally reached the city.
Heat lay over the land,
glimmering on rooftops and streets and stone
and cloth, as bright as the sand.
Covered with the dust of many days and roads,
exhausted and thirsty and worn -
numbed by the emptiness I raised my eyes
and looked upon the towers of the city.
And a picture arose from strange depths,
fading as soon as it emerged -
those towers like shadowy fingers in the light,
as if I had recognised them.
Seeing beyond the mirror's silver
back onto an earlier page. . .
Ancient traces that are softly blown away,
lost dreams, forgotten times
that escort us in the shadows of the road -
the city.
Wading through colors, smells and voices,
alone amid the crowd,
faces behind the veils seemed to be waiting
to be familiar.
Hidden lines in the sandy ground
revealed the earlier building,
I looked through lives and worlds and times
and sensed the walls clearly.
The bridges and arches, the temples and towers,
so strange and yet so familiar
as if traversed in hundreds of starlit dreams,
built from night and memory.
I walked as if through empty facades,
familiarity whereever I turned,
aimlessly through lonely alleys,
doubting my sanity.
A square in the silence of dusk
to which no memory bound me,
an olive tree among the walls,
a knife in my hand,
I touched the rough wood,
I carved my name in it,
then paused in the labor of my hands
and knew I was not alone.
Writings in the bark pattern,
crooked, ancient shrine,
hundreds of signs and names,
and all - - - all are mine!
I fled the city as if in a fever
but the pictures followed me far,
I felt the tower's shadow in my back,
the breath of people and time.
From a hill I silently looked back -
it seemed so peaceful and quiet! -
watched, how towers and walls sank into the evening
and suddenly yearned for home.
Strangely moved, I wandered into the night
through dreams of sun and stone.
I will see the towers once more,
but who will I be then?
Seeing beyond the mirror's silver
back onto an earlier page. . .
Ancient traces that are softly blown away,
lost dreams, forgotten times
that escort us in the shadows of the road -
the city.
Eva, 23. Mai 2001
Travelogue