And I remember it now
My father and I
Walking the rocky Mediterranean shore line
Harnessed deep within our making and reforming
Our mistakes and our troubles
Our life sea breathed across a tumultuous blue sky
As we kick sand up from our feet
As the salty wind finds time with our hair
Silver and thin, thick and auburn
We move comfortably through the realm of our promised land
Past and future
Presently we become dry and stop for a beer in a place upon the beach
We are seated and are quiet, our gazes crisscrossed in somber tingling
I look out towards Jaffa, where we are headed
The island of Jaffa where Jonah was sent out to sea and swallowed by the whale
My eyes fall back to the scene in front of us
A young father plays with his daughter in the surf
Picking her up and swinging her down in the settling light rays of the fallen afternoon
In little more than one year, this scene will be lit up once again
But not by the glittering sun reflected off the misty blue sea
There will be fiery white hot rays in its place
Rays that will cut flesh and kill, maim my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers
It will be a blast that will send the detonator straight to Allah, and the night dancers
that surround him hanging by threads from the desert stars and washed into the red rocky shore
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