Untitled (August 29/30) Poem by Steph Kjaerbaek

I brought him frankincense
He asked for myrrh and gold
so I called out to the Magi
who brushed their camel's fur
beneath the Eastern Star
And they told me to fetch it myself
From Osman's mythical land afar
Beneath the temples and churches Byzantine
where the monks sell silk and make wine
and the carpetbaggers sell rugs
carefully woven to the ghazal's time.

Tired of the conquests from Rome
From chains ripped the slave fled
The beggar made his aaliyah
through the Damascus gate
the fractured wall that stands beside
the rock of the dome
a land he once called home
He witnessed a change from
the time of jahabaliyah.