Friday, November 22, 2019

A Berber at the Next Table - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


A Berber at the Next Table

This afternoon I met a Berber
                                                    A friend
And I were welcomed at a table where
We had never been invited before,
And the men there were studying the Koran.

One fellow said of another that he
Was fluent in four languages. This man
Was silently reading a copy of the Koran.
That is, I inferred that it was the Koran

Because of the green frame around unbroken
And unpunctuated blocks of Arabic script
On each page; for all I know it could have been
A translation of, oh, My Sister the Stripper

The first man had a dual-language copy
And after the purported (I was suspicious)
Linguist read aloud a piece in Arabic
(And it really was), the other read it

Aloud in English, the story of Cain and Abel.
A good discussion followed. And as we left
I asked the man (I don’t remember his name)
What were the several languages he knew:

English, Arabic, Berber, “and a little French.”
Someone in the group asked what Berber is
And I replied that it is an ancient culture
Along the North African shore. Our man

Beamed approvingly (he had been cold-faced)

At my poor knowledge, and told us that, yes
He is a Berber from Algeria.

I wish I could have asked him how it happens
That he is here, but courtesy forbids it
And the rules do too

Another man asked us for our prayers because
He is being transferred to another prison
(The euphemism is “unit”) to serve
Out his long sentence, maybe forever

Another man asked for our prayers because
He is being discharged to “the outside” in 21 days

Ours is a transit camp, with no one staying
Longer than two years, and so with
Some on legal hold
Some serving out their short sentences
And some awaiting space in another prison
Men come and go
And that's a metaphor for life

And I met a Berber today

Peace

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