Gaze
By Lora Berg
April 15, 2023
April 15, 2023
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I.
The men, especially in the inland cities, build high walls around their gardens and heavy shutters over windows. Up on the roofs, roof to roof, shawled women string hot peppers. “Morning!” they call to one another. They see everything. II. The turmeric poppy rolls up at night like a scroll, and unrolls at dawn for the bees to read. Closed, it looks like an Ottoman hat on top of a tomb in Tunis, and open, like sunrise over the Mare Nostrum when Baba Salam, in his own red cap would gaze across that sea, recite the roster of historic invaders who had come from over there, and muse that they were all long gone, while we, he’d say, (may he rest in peace) we are all still here. |
A current member of the Poetry Collective of Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Lora Berg writes with a light touch, sometimes on difficult topics. Lora has published a collaborative book with visual artist Canute Caliste, and poems in Shenandoah, Colorado Review and The Carolina Quarterly, etc. She served as a Poet-in-Residence at the Saint Albans School and holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins. Among hats, Lora has served as Cultural Attaché at U.S. Embassies abroad and lived in several countries.