Soil in the City

Mushabbak Church

among these rocks where full moon tides pulled the ocean bottom to the top absorbed by a sun unlike today they say

to explain this calcite plateau, boulders built into a byzantine basilica heavy lintels, open doors and windows—

three rounded Roman frames above three horizontals steadied by diagonals imprinted with interlocking signs in circles

read by pilgrims on their way to see Saint Simon, to drink the waters collected in great stone pits, north

down stone steps into a cistern, south a huge deep pool, dry as the pink light settling on gray ridges and tethered mules.

Below, rows of olive groves, greening after February rains warm enough to lick two almond trees into white bloom.