She sits cross-knee’d across from me

her broad black face, tribally cicatriced

as honest and dear as earth itself

and for some perverse (un)reason

she is perfectly fascinated by me, yours truly!

 

In unabashed scrutiny she stares and stares

until at last, her face breaks into a gigantic, toothy grin

and hitching up her scrumpled frock

 (which has a huge, zippered pocket

slap across her capacious, saggy bosom

bulging with her few monies and worldly goods)

she leans forward and says

We come from the same home base, she and I

but even so, that’s not the sort of passing remark or courtesy

that one can reply to, is it?

- Oh yes, how kind! or I love you too!

would be but hollow mockery.

So we smile and swap bottles of water and jokes

and sit on our prayer-mats in millions

sweating out our sins - lets hope!

at the foot of Arafat, the hill of grace.

 

The sky is blurred with dizzy heat

and laced with droning helicopters televising us

for the satellites to pass the word, the world around

- the pilgrim hoard is on it’s annual migratory trail:

the vigil in the mountain is on:

spotlight the most profound incomprehensibility in Man - his faith, etc

which, at the micro-cosmic, personal level

means she and I sitting there in our sardine-packed corner

of the thousands of acres of tents.

No earth-shattering information is exchanged!

No secret, mystic lore divulged!

Not even an I will see you again - give me a souvenir!

(anything to clutch to..)

Belonging, it might seem, to different worlds

sitting there, altogether in the dust, made of the same stuff

yet she I bet, is richer far than I

with her king-size heart and twinkling eye.

 

After a while she gets up and stomps off

- where the ice-cream vans  and strings of articulated trucks of ice

line the campments:

where the legions of vendors with pepsi, yoghurt and sandwiches

sell their wares:

where the cruising, mega-phoning traffic wardens

and sirening ambulances patrol

and the endless crowds, lethally umbrella’s from the sun

urgently, ardently chant, chatter and shout

- babies and bags and boxes on shoulders

while herds of sacrificial sheep

obediently wend through the hooting scrum

with their fat Arabian tails (tales!) and sweet sheepishness

their hours  numbered irretrievably.

 

After a while she returns

 plonking herself down gustily

in her private plot,  her place in space

and without more ado  she thrusts out her hand

and presents me with  the singular trophy of her errand:

one apple.

For you! she says.

 

Lets face it!

all standard social so-called graces

are herewith flummoxed, floored.

She wins the day.

Even the body-language blush sufficeth not.

So all that is left to do is -  eat it!

So I do.  

while she follows the operation

with closest attention, down to the pips.

peace on your hands, pilgrim sister!

 Though it already is.

 

August 1985