The Red Earth Jar
in the sweat of December ‘45
when I was one,
a peasant led his camel
to the mountains of Jabal.
he dug up Sabakha,top soil,
at
for his garden.
his steps echoed
in the chambers
of buried
his blade intoned a strike.
he scraped the contours
till an urn emerged -
half the measure of a man.
he traced its neck and buttocks,
wondering. his blood-beat up,
he raised his mattock
and smashed it to starry shards.
he resurrected no gold, no silver,
but papyrus, Coptic script,
caught in loose leaf and leather,
one embossed with an ankh.
his camel carried his find
dumping it at his mother’s oven.
she fed straw and shredded leaves
to the fire. the rest she
gave
to a village priest
who passed it on to a reading one.
so word by word
the news spread throughout the land.
Ali al Samman’s mattock
had unstopped the Gnostic gospels.
from a 2000 year sleep,
the jinn leapt from the red earth jar.