Nineveh

Nineveh, City of Ishtar, by moonlight. Silver lines, sharp edges and all the spectra of the shadows, the purple and blue inevitability of death. And now again, there is a shrill yipping that is tied by the neck; the piping of an unhappy dog tearing the peace of old rest.

A moment, a day, a month, we had one year. But there in that blue flame of moonlight, in Nineveh, that is the memory where I send my heart to rest.

I used to think of Jericho as up the Jordan, "but it is not, it is hard by the Dead Sea..!" I learned so much from you. When we listened to Harry in the tent. Love slow as a rich dig, brushes, chamois and silk.

You told me of my gullibility, laughed at my naivete. Telling me we were no longer in the US, here people played for lives over pride, "Watch your tongue, at first you will amaze them with your innocence, then they will eat the little lamb all gone." I remember they salted a green peach.

The river abandoned Babylon, Ashur and Ur. I know their desolation. I still feel it, twenty years hence. The difference? Now I look down on Nineveh.
You found me Donovan’s Atlantis. I miss you so much...
HGM [Hurdy Gurdy Man]