Shadows

And look
at that ancient wall
of crumbling dust
and dreams strong
as iron

Where my hand is touching
others have touched
Where my cheek is pressed
others have pressed

see that fern
that grows in that crack
between the centuries
did someone transplant it
from a broken heart

And those yellow flowers
are they growing out of a
trickle of blood
that fell from a worker
at a cook shop here
two thousand years ago

Are they life renewed?

Did he rest here in the
shade of this wall
as I am now, escaping the
heat of midday
and nursing a finger that
lost its nail?

The past are shadows
And I
enjoying my
lunch of bread and butter
I am nothing more than
a shadow soon to be

How many people had to die
for me to have my shade
for  me to eat my my lunch
and laugh at the tourists in
sore thumb clothes

Hundreds?

And these rocks behind me
my backrest for the moment
are they here from the
blood and sweat and pain
of those slaves so very
long ago

Am I simply living in
someone's memory
leaning against a
wall that has already decayed
eating my lunch of nothingness
watching the dead walk by
Am I a shadow already

And look at this wall
grand and majestic
dirty with the blood and
sweat of millions
with the little seedling
growing in the cracks

How many more
will sit as I am sitting
Do as I am doing
Ask the same questions?

Perhaps tomorrow
a terrorist will come
with a backpack full of
centuries
hate and anger
and will destroy this wall

and the only thing left
will be dreams left by shadows
long long ago
In a dusty hot road
With no wall
Dreams strong as iron