In Ur of the Chaldees,
Standing in the present upon The River’s edge surveying the future and the past;
Smelling the offal of five thousand years of human history boiling in the water and the desert heat;
Hearing the echoes of Sumer and Edom, Assyria and Babylon, alongside that of Riyadh and Tehran-
Chariots crashing against shields and spears,
The whistle of arrows and stones,
The distant crack of a Kalashnikov;
Feeling the oppressive weight of human history, the eternal struggle,
At least since the Plant of Heartbeat was stolen by the serpent.
Tasting the salty blowing sand- heavy in the air,
The acidic pollution of overcrowded cities,
And the acrid smoke from burning bodies and the burning oilfields;
Death is on the breeze.
Seeing the Tel of Ur in its ancient geometric splendor,
Ishtar gate rising in Babylonian majesty,
The crumbled Walls of Nineveh no longer protected by the thunder of chariots,
And the concrete panels dividing every community from Basra to Mosul;
Seeing the unseen deep and knowing the unknown like Gilgamesh of old;
In Ur of the Chaldees, in the shadow of Babylon, the wind flows down from the mountains of Assyria;
In Ur of the Chaldees mere men try to conquer death,
Yet cannot even conquer sleep,
And in the trying release visions and hallucinations of suffering upon mankind.
In Ur of the Chaldees Abram was called out on a journey without an end.
Father Abraham- a stranger in a strange land,
A stranger in a strange land- as am I,
A stranger in a strange land- as are We.
In Ur of the Chaldees Utnapishtim grieves eternally-
The cradle of civilization has been made into a tomb.
