The Yellow Palm: Robert Minhinnick

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The Yellow Palm

As I made my way down Palestine Street I watched a funeral pass - all the women waving lilac stems around a coffin made of glass and the face of the man who lay within who had breathed a poison gas.

As I made my way down Palestine Street I heard the call to prayer and I stopped at the door of the golden mosque to watch the faithful there but there was blood on the walls and the muezzin’s eyes were wild with his despair.

As I made my way down Palestine Street I met two blind beggars And into their hands I pressed my hands with a hundred black dinars; and their salutes were those of the Imperial Guard in the Mother of all Wars.

As I made my way down Palestine Street I smelled the wide Tigris, the river smell that lifts the air in a city such as this; but down on my head fell the barbarian sun that knows no armistice.

As I made my way down Palestine Street I saw a Cruise missile, a slow and silver caravan on its slow and silver mile, and a beggar child turned up his face and blessed it with a smile.

As I made my way down Palestine Street under the yellow palms I saw their branches hung with yellow dates all sweeter than salaams, and when that same child reached up to touch, the fruit fell in his arms.

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