JEAN GERARD

Our heads are full of notions from

the ringing bells of memory recalling

places never known except as song:

“Christian soldiers marching to Zion”

or the cantor’s chant on holy days –

New York, Paris, London, Egypt,

Auschwitz, even, but ah! – tomorrow

“Tomorrow in Jerusalem the Golden.”

Take the Holy City from the Arabs!

The tomb of Christ must be regained!

Cross, or Covenant’s Ark, the very bones

of faith demand to rest in peace!

In 1099 rumors of the Pontiff’s urgent call

traveled from cathedral to court to town.

His Grace himself took to the road.

Cities and villages offered up treasure.

Some Arabs did not believe the wild tales.

Others feared not to believe, and many

fled the towns.  Gathering multitudes

filled the roads with credulous mobs.

Rumors arrived first on lips of merchants.

Jerusalem shivered.  Preparing to flee in fear,

people who had alternatives deserted,

hoping to survive in neighboring places.

 

Most of those who stayed — Muslims,

Jews , Christians, Turks and Greeks –

were stupefied when throngs of knights

approached between the crags of stony hills

or stirred  the desert floor to clouds of dust.

Advancing toward the Mosque of Samuel,

they raised their tents outside the city walls,

yet they did not charge.  Muslim archers

held their breath, but the Christian horde

formed a processions around the city walls.

Led by black-robed monks singing songs

they beat upon the stones with bare fists.

What was this?  What man of common sense

would bloody his bare hands against rocks?

Was it evidence of their strange, mad fever,

proof of deep devotion to their Jesus?

Or to al-Quds, site of Mohammed’s ascent,

home of the Jews, holy to all of Abraham’s tribes?

But files of knights turned, prepared for battle,

erecting siege machinery  north and south

that hurled huge rocks through the air.

or cast fat balls of oily fire to fly

over walls like burning birds of prey!

Amazed, the Muslim leaders watched

from the eight-sided Tower of David.

while knights burned Jews in their synagogue.

tortured Greek Christians to learn

where the Holy Cross was hidden,  and then

killed all who remained, showing no mercy

even for children.  Thus was Jerusalem lost.

News of the sacrilege and cruelty spread.

In August, Muslims, fasting for Ramadan

far away in a Baghdad mosque, saw their qadi

stuffing his mouth with cakes and meat.

Offended and shocked, the people screamed.

But he silenced them, saying: “Al Quds was outrage!

What hypocrite now dares to protest

such a minor thing as a little lapse in diet?”

Yet even outrage did not force the Muslims

into unity.  Factions remained, and officials

were reluctant to enter a holy war. Thousands

of settlers from Europe followed the knights.

Merchants  plied the coast, trade flourished,

and though there were small outbreaks

of violent fighting, yet for many  years

a tentative, cool  tolerance prevailed.

But Jerusalem was not forgotten.  Muslim hearts

were filled with secret rage and vowed in silence

to take back their treasured Al Aqsa Mosque,

face Mecca and pray again within their Holy City.