Dream Of Marrakech Poem by Bernard Kennedy

I have a kilim on my floor from Marrakech,
and in a drawer, a golden cigar clipper,
a gift from the sheltering sky.
The souks yield cobbled byzantine imagination,
the carpets sale and enthusiasm hits
the visitor. Forty years ago,
from Rabat, through, and on to Fes,
where writers call by. The small shops,
and hot curried rice with meats
and sweet meets and sweat. Haggling
is the currency and represents the deal,
to haggle with life between
hardship and barren land,
a desert of sand. The sellers sell
with unbridled hope. Our haggle with life,
our bargaining, our kilim of imagination.
Laid beneath my feet.
And looking from the snow covered,
Powerscourt demesne, here in Enniskerry,
as if from Mamounia hotel to its garden
drinking chai,
to the Sugar loaf mountain,
the fluctuating reverie,
draws to the kilim of held
imagination,
a dreaming Marrakech.