Only on a Friday .... in the Spring of 2008

Ode to an elusive peace written during civil strife in Lebanon, post the Israeli war of aggression of 2006:

Beirut .... that unfathomable yet beautiful city,
home to my son for the time being,
is driving me crazy.

Just when things were going so well for son at uni;
he's evacuated along with other students,
as chaos runs riot, loud and menacing,
through the streets of this
beloved of cities.

He ducked and dived his way from Hamra
to the AUB campus on Bliss,
one fateful Friday,
as the sound of gunfire and loud explosions ricocheted
from building to building.
He chatted with friendly masked gunmen along the way
who guided his passage to safety,
as bullet casings crunched underfoot.
And then he waited, waited a whole day
on that fateful Friday
along with a crowd of Jordanians that had
swelled to nearly two hundred;
some anxious, some panicked, some blase,
some sleeping and still others just enjoying
the fleeting moment of freedom
from academic toil
and the stress of exams.

Nightfall, and the all clear was given as the four buses
left in convoy northwards bound for Tripoli;
ironic really, as the scene of some of the worst clashes
in this current bout of political bullying;
as the bus trundled its way from one end of Syria to the other,
homeward bound.

Twenty four hours later, starving, worn out but safe,
son arrives home with a story to tell,
leaving behind unfinished end of year exams,
and starlit nights playing guitar on the veranda
in an ancient, endearing land.
No-one knows what the outcome will be ....
as we pine for peace
today, tomorrow and yesterday, and
always on a Friday ...
in this never ending story that is Lebanon.