Traipsing through Bilad al-Sham – a visual poem

I was lucky enough to share several adventures with Jo over the past eight years or so. She was a joy to travel with as her curiosity and interest in everyone and everything made for quite a trip. In the summer of 2010 we spent 3 weeks in Syria. It was eight months before the beginning of the protests and then the civil war. I have written this poem in memory of that trip and for all the people in Syria who have and continue to endure such pain and suffering.

Under the shadow of the minaret we indulged in the finest cuisine

An oasis courtyard filled with children's laughter

The hushed exchange of women sharing a hookah pipe

A feast for the eyes a carnival for the mouth

The Ommayed mosque in Damascus

Sunlight creeps through the aged French bullet holes

The world's oldest covered souk

In a stall an array of coloured head scarfs

In the next a jolly man with a forbidden treasure of novelty women's underwear

Spices by the bucketful to tease even the most bland of pallets

The styles of headgear 

Novelty ladies panties

Wandering the streets of the old city

All the ancient religions colliding

Churches flanked in ancient Aramaic

Mosques decorated in calligraphic Islamic art

A calm corner housing a synagogue

A time when differences coexisted

Places lost in time in the womb of the old city

Traditional Syrian coffee

Spices

The original bike panniers

Saint Paul upon the hill drinking in the wonder of Damascus

We gazed upon it 2000 years later a dusty gem in the valley

Houses crawling up the valley walls a crescendoing city

An ancient crossroads excluded from the contemporary stage

A day excursion to a city of old

Built by men from a distant land

A wonder in a desert setting

Towering columns and intricate carvings

An amphitheatre the keeper of echoes of performances past

The symmetry of architectural wonder a connection to peoples long forgotten

Halls of Palmyra

Palmyra's amphitheatre

A stop on the silk route evident in the faces of the vendors

A freckled red head who claims descent from James Joyce

The covered market protected illuminating with it's timelessness

The Barron Hotel the resting place in Aleppo of Lawrence of Arabia and Agatha Christie

Rooms and pictures which have seen better days but exuberating images of brighter times

A whiskey on the terrace overlooking the street reflecting on a kaleidoscopic land

Citadel in Aleppo

UNESCO heritage site - Aleppo's souk

The Barron Hotel Aleppo

Onwards to the border to the land of the Turks

Leaving a land a people I hold now only in my memory

Ravaged by war enemies within and foreign born

Lives destroyed families shattered society melting

Memories I once shared with you I treasure in my minds-eye

Jo's love of books and good coffee