Expat Eyes

Traveling Inside Out

“No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand that marks the nomad…This cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match.”  

T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1935

I begin a journey
across oceans and deserts,
to modern cities
in ancient lands,
into the world of  caliphs and jinns…
mega-malls and hyper-markets,

a journey
among bedouins and sheikhs, souqs and dhows,
minarets, chedis, abayas and dishdasha,
moving to the cadence of the muezzin call to prayer
and the aroma of cardamom, coriander, and cumin.

a journey
to the birthplace of civilization,
a crossroads,
a trade route,
a collision point,
a war zone.

I begin a journey                                            
across continents and cultures
into the past and the future,
beyond distant horizons
into my soul.

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