The Craft's Souk

        There's a glass blower.
        The solid daub ledge
        holds a cotillion
        of green and blue glass-
        breakable shapes spun
        as he blows and pulls and dips
        and spills and whips  and drops

                                                     and pulls                                                       

a
                              cobra
            
        from liquid glass dripping and twirled.
        
        The hot furnace
        is a nest of orange red
        in the dusky room.
        Night is outside
        and we stand near enough
        to be warmed by the stove.
        Desert nights can be colder
        than you think.

        I hold the youngest child,
        and feel him twitch and twist
        as the glass blower    moves
        with arms stretched up and out suspending
                                red glass
        
        that drops into a iridescent swan.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

 

Published Harrisburg Review 1998

Sand Bottles

  

                             There are
                                more
                               colors
                               of sand
                               in little
                               dishes
                                than I
                               thought
                          possible. From
                         the white I know
                       so well through the
                       pinks  and  oranges
                      and reds I'm learning,
                    to the browns I believed
                 in before I came, to black.
              He takes a pinch of dark brown,
            drops it in a narrow necked bottle
         on a tan layer already poured on top
        of light brown one.    His dark head is
       bowed over his work and he reaches in
      the bottle  with a wire,  touches the sand
      pushes gently, pulls, releases and a camel
     prances on a desert landscape. It only took
      a few seconds and he repeats it all around
     etching a caravan of camels prancing. With
    dark fingers he tweaks up a color from a little
     dish, pours another shade and another, pokes
      with his thin wire patterns in the sand like
         a  starry night-  and he packs it tightly
            compressing the picture and plugs
             it shut with a soft waxy substance
          that hardens and we have a splendid
       little memento that fits firmly in my hand.

 poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

 

Sunset

              
        The sun doesn't
            sink slowly.
        It drops suddenly
        as if pulled
        by an unseen hand.
        
        A grasping grip
        afraid to come up
        beyond the horizon
        
        waiting
        
        as the yellow disc
        up above comes
        closer, 

        taking dusk
        and turning it
        into a passionate
        red-orange.

        When the edge
        of the round red sun
        has slipped past a certain
        point on the landscape's edge
        the unseen hand grabs it
        pulls-

        The sun plunges down
        immediately
        dropped
        away.

        Gray light lingers a bit longer
        fingering the last threads of dusk.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

Downtown Amman

 
         
        Walking on the sidewalk,
        watching the orangey-red

        and yellow tiles alternating...

        Some squares are loose,
        my footing is still firm

        but a spell of clanking echoes

        as we make our way towards
        the narrow shops neatly
        crammed with goods.
        
        I feel like a coin tossed:

        What century  
        is falling all around
        encasing me

        with gold.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab