Archaeological Poem

An Old Synagogue Mosaic in Susiya

I have sat here many centuries, under the blazing sun,

once my roof collapsed, and then the sand

covered these wonderful mosaics, lovely colours,

images of piety and pleasure, such as one

might see in a far off rich and goyish land,

but eventually as they say, eventually time blurs

everything, and no one saw me anymore.

Then other settlers, not really very long ago

crossed over the river and built a village, used my name;

they never noticed me sitting here in the middle,

always waiting for the time to pass again,

and my own descendants to return and brush

aside the dust of centuries, until now, that is,

without the poetry of dreams or the piddle

of politics.  I watch the scientists rush

to poke and measure what lay beneath the surface,

and while they don’t exactly appreciate my faith

inscribed in pagan illustrations, they

are my own people, finally, and claim

me as their own, while the others fiddle

with the law and turn time upside down

as though they were here first like the sand and dust,

eternal and natural, like the wind and the dervish swirl

of made-up history, violent and ephemeral

in ugly tents and vicious lies. 

How I would hurl

invectives at these enemies and cast them down

in all their arrogance, but I am old and know a thing or two,

that what was not there ten years ago cannot now be true

and must learn patience yet again and bite my tongue,

though I could not have done that when I was young;

the poetry you see in these mosaics came from anger—

how fierce I was in the faith I had in God!

Now like the sands that slowly yield my face,

I sit here at the side and wait for your response.