In the Old City, a guide tells his group
it’s safe to walk around, all the quarters
monitored by surveillance cameras.
I look up and see a steel gray lens
lilting back and forth,
an eye trying to anchor in time:
A man in a black hat and coat
crosses the road in front of a car
reading from his prayer book.
He mumbles in Hebrew
and then his voice begins to tremble—
a yud shimmers
like a butterfly stopped in mid-air.
Alongside him, a man in a djellaba
hears the muezzin’s cries
and breaks into a run,
his urgent Allauh ak-bar, Allahu ak-bar
parting the crowd.
 
We go back to our apartment,
walls made of Jerusalem stone.
I stare at one piece until I see a face emerge:
a lion resting, merely resting.