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Naked tracings worn thin of he
who walked miles in thousands of
shoes filled with sorrow,
shoe marks worn away
where he encamped
and where he alighted
on earth that tells the years passed
since the months of peace
gone, to months of what is now,
shoes that speak of dreams in the
West of when paradise was near;

to meet his lover of a far, he
left during the long nights that
desires to go where
the soul withdraws to its home,
to fly forgotten as a dream,
to cover the past with space
he sails on a small boat
in a sea so immense
that transports
dreams after dreams.

Night putting its shadow aside
for soles of the feet to cross
the river to Zion,
the boat awaits to take its guest
to a place of dreams of love, inside
left all; deserting a conduit and heaps
to travel with 7 oceans and
hundreds of millions of stars
swinging; to walk with a million suns
that light up the day
of whole rivers of light,

to swim, in seas of love waves
that shields pain,
to make blankets of dark sand;
sandcastles that shield,
to receive quiet nights
and mornings
that call songs of birds
that sings for souls of dreams,
and he, infix’t
to be one with dreams he becomes
one with everything around,
laughing only to the sky.

Unbending on dreams
he, dwells amid the stocks
of ruins of stone-walls
heading where the imagination
broke in, his entire sky
taken up by
a journey full of unawareness,
continuing; alighted by the affection
of Zion,
he remains a prisoner of his dream
captive to a world beyond knowing.

In the wide-of-eyes
on an open terrain he journeyed
for the love of Zion,
strung out along the route
chased, shadows of hope closing in
crying to his fears,
speaking with the deaf;
the unexpressed rocks,
befriending sands
that speaks of time.

Time that brings out his eclipse
of a spirit of unsullied lucid dreams
of mysteries of Zion,
in silence to join its silent secret place,
he sifts through the current of air
swamped by rains of a night traveler
flowing dark and under, he
enwrapped in every kind of cloud
passing the night
to join the cleared morning
of pearls of the great sky,
to witness nights of dark and under.

Unbroken, he continued
to brake past bonds
to make new ones
on the eastern slopes
to join with Zion,
and even in far holding on
to not brake the bonds of desire
he, pushed by the north winds
to what is the southern tip
of the north Afrik to that
of the northern terrain
of the Bilad as Sudan,

crossing to trade life for what
seemed not death
beyond flutes
of Sudanese tunes,
escaped eternal rest to bathe
in the Nile
to wash blood with sparks of gold,
black dust of the body
walked a mile in cracked
earth to find the feet reluctantly
stuck in cracks of xylophonic tunes of life.

A spirit of unsullied lucid dreams,
mysteries of Zion he meets,
one moment his life a stone
the next
a meet'ng of the land of his lovers;
to be embraced by ashes, cold winds
and blackened hearts of stones
of Zion,
oh closeness to life, hardness of life
to what is now
that grief’d him through journeys,

to at last, to have met his land of lovers
but to be met with phantoms
that creep around
that sting and bring droplets;
each drop for the lost dreams
of Zion;
deceived dreams that makes the heart
brew trouble and anguish,
the departure of paradise
the loss of a longed lover,

his Zion,
aching his heart of a dream
once promised and now lost,
of a friend she may have been
but even she could not keep
her promise to him,
for a well-meant word
could not be taken by she,
a friend he once called;

his heart weeps with no end
for the one he knows
and only loves,
others of a life to come;
more to come
to meet and to attest and
to have to turn their backs, and he,
the aloneness of the deluded soul
broken'n
fades into the distance
kept in the shadows of Zion.

_
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* Amira Ali holds an MA in international relations and conflict resolution. She is a freelance writer, poet and activist.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.