Next year in Jerusalem

When I am gone I will still feel the rock

the clang,

the gentle roll

of a slow moving train.

I will smell the salt

the grease

the tangy spice of dyunar.

I will taste ayran

as it tries to loosen my tongue

so that

it will not stumble

–

the way my feet stumble

over roman cobble stones

yellow bricks

and broken tiles that tilt up

to soak unsuspecting feet in chill muddy water.

I will still hear loud

voices raised in anger

and jubilation

in ice cream parlors

on side walks

and, so many times,

at home.

I will not forget the beggar outside the

gaudy

foreign

Raddison,

the accordion player next to the Billa

in the underpass

near the university

or all the shops girls who stand outside;

a shot of espresso

a cigarette

and a vague annoyance

as their uniform.

I will treasure

the summer rains

the humid trolley packed with people in thick down jackets

the sticky smell of salt in the air at the black sea

and the perfume of roses in Kazanlak.

Endless cups of wine and coffee

conversations about past and future

the brush of stubble across my cheek for Balkan good bye

leaning in to kiss softly

three times

the cheeks of Bulgarians

and Englishmen,

Turks and Hungarians.

I will wish I could forget my failures

my awkward

jittery

unsure

shyness.

In front of a classroom of teenagers

barely younger than I.

At dinner with Bulgarians who speak too fast

and lose me with a word

Sitting with men-

who made heat pool in my belly

and a wicked smile light on rouged lips

and my brain to drop blank into insipid forgetfulness.

And yet here I am more beautiful

and more at home

under the linden tree

and inside a gold domed church.

My hair tangled

from the wind of an old military jeep

and lightened by a stronger sun.

My skin

no longer the colour of the wild English rose

but red

like the roses that have grown here

since the Ottomans.

I have not found a god

but I have found where one might live

in the hand that held mine for a one night only

and the peace of a beeswax candle

or the cold burn of absinthe.

I cannot say who I am

or how I’ve changed

or who I will be next year.

I will return with rose oil

and sea shells

and the frailest silver filigree.

Lilac scented soap

and huge

impractical

cashmere scarves

run through with gold threads.

My baggage is not made much heavier

for I have left here

books

my favorite lip stick

a pair of ripped jeans that have become shorts

more daringly cut than I would have worn

before.

But my soul is heavier

and my mind

and my memory.

I am glad that there is no limit of self discovery when you board a plane

they will not demand that I pay

an extra $50 for each town I have visited

each Thracian tomb I’ve explored,

each sour plum I’ve eaten,

each time I’ve used the imperfective verb form

instead of the perfective.

I have seen my future in the lines around the eyes of those who’ve come before me

and in their pasts I see advice

and warnings

and simple empathy

as they say “yes, we feel it too,”

“We yearn for a home,

and to see the world,

and to become something more

than what we were

and what we are.”

And in five years, or ten, or twenty

when I see myself

in the naïve smile a tall French girl in Sankt Peterburg

and the restless walk of a dark haired Australian in Praha

or the shy exuberance of slim boy new to Missoula

I will tell them the same thing.

I will show them the memories kept gently polished

like your grandmother’s finest silver.

And I will press into their hand

a key.