Hama draws water in circles in wooden pinwheels younger than the citadel that split the world— Hittite, Greek, and Roman families in orderly layers dispersed like so much inheritance to claimants in the capital, leftovers to populate a palace vacated by Damascus, now ruins of black basalt. Trace the mosaic: lion leaps a duck, horse canters over diamonds, ladies play glass bowls ancient instruments silenced for Hama’s dead, covered up like burn marks in Azem’s Gold Room luxury where once the wheel turned until burned.
Swimming to Syria 14
