Dahab 2006

The sky is an altar cloth

turning turquoise to citrine to gold to ruby

to celebrate the sun’s descent and evening’s worship,

Children charge around stoked

at the encroaching night

teeming with treats and possibilities,

Teens tease and tousle

their hair to stay up and flatten creases down

and promise to be home on time,

Lovers link arms and lace fingers and lock eyes

and wander like glowing zombies

along the amber-blush beachfront boardwalk,

Visitors view maps and menus

choosing the best spot to watch

the sunset and people and lounge,

Servers stand and welcome all

into canopied courtyards and restaurants

to sit at glittering candlelit tables

and sip at glistening glasses

BANG

BANG

BANG

Three flashes almost in time with three crashes

one after another are three screen doors slamming

symmetrically ramming the air with fear

and warnings too late to heed.

The air freezes in shock and stillness.

Silence

until

Chaos explodes and screams into the space

shop windows vomit designs and expressions

possessions expand across pavements

tables launch cutlery, crockery carnage

starters and cocktails explode into soft drinks

parasol spears catapult across cobbles

deckchairs and daiquiris dash against walls

people collide as they fall and they flee and they scramble and stumble

limbs stretch akimbo in flight, fear and frenzy

hands splay as legs race as eyes stretch as tears flood as cuts bleed

and coughs and shouts and cries choke the smoke-filled air

and everywhere glass and glass and glass

in chips and specks and splinters reflecting

turquoise and citrine and gold and ruby

ruby red

crimson red

blood red

red sun

red clouds

red birds

red everywhere

spattered and sprayed and smeared

tainting and staining every surface

in a charnel compendium of Jackson’s abstraction on Pablo’s distortion

as the tide rinses the beach in blood

and reason struggles to breathe.

I step from luck’s safe embrace to see shards and splinters strewn

as distorted diamonds and random rubies

across the crazed paving glittering,

a single slider marks a journey's end,

a shallow ditch of burned pavement

and a charred charcoal starburst

where a cowardly backpack once sat filled with malice.

The bells finally stop ringing for me

and the air is screams and shouts and cries

and clouds of pleas for release or reprieve float up

and prayers fall like rain on deafened ears and stone

and everywhere is loss.

Then instinct lurches and the need

to do something anything functioning

busily finding business

to help

not to think or let it in

or admit helplessness,

and strangers move strangers

and help the helpless

to find families and loved ones

and to grasp tightly to any silver linings before the clouds suffocate,

because Dahab has become Pandora’s box

and hate and pain and rage and suffering have all been released

and spread far and wide to scar and scorch and smear

but still stubbornly hope still remains,

for tomorrow we know

- we who have breathed this air before

we who are not new

we who are not cowed -

that the pavement will be swept clean

the blood rinsed away

the glass replaced

the tables reset

the shops refilled

the dead buried

the injured treated

the living comforted

the wounds salved

while the scars will remain

etched in sand and memories

and the turning tides

in turquoise and citrine and gold and ruby

and red

forever red.

Award Winning Poet Seb Wolff.