Sunset Prayer at the Citadel of Aleppo
Chris Ellery
August 3, 2025
If you want to feel how heavy history is,
meet me and Nasruddin at the Citadel.
Stand in the keep and contemplate the mass
of the darkness forgetting you. Measure
the arrow slits high in the battlements, and fly
on the arc of a shaft to your enemy’s heart.
Excavate your bones from the bloody ground,
and rise among the corpses below the walls
to see the mullah on his knees looking for
a missing key. Inquire among the passers-by
if anyone among them has seen a key.
Ask first the men, bunched like arrows in a quiver
leading their women, then ask their heaven-eyed
wives hanging behind in clusters on vines
of coming night. Not finding mullah’s key,
for you will find no key at the Citadel,
counterclockwise circumambulate
the tell. Passing cafe and coffeehouse,
notice the games of backgammon and chess,
observe the players, how they hold the hose
of the hookah pipe while moving their knight
or rolling the dice. Hear in their speech and laughter
the ancient, undying delight in conquest
and slaughter. Keep on walking. Do not try
to count the stones in the bridge. Recall
with every step how centuries of sacrifice
and siege could never breach the Citadel.
Stop where and when Nasruddin stops,
and buy boiled corn from a cheerful vendor.
Savor the sun and rain still in the grain.
Savor the flavor of the soil of al-Sham,
where men first learned to farm the earth.
Smile for the gift of friends, Nasruddin and me,
and smile that we left the key at home,
and smile that there never was a key,
and, showing your teeth like grain in the ear,
chuckle at the kernels in mullah’s beard,
as every Aleppo minaret entreats
the faith again to evening prayers. Listen.
See the slaves of God unfurl their rugs.
You want to feel how heavy history is.
The heaviness of history is the heft of those prayers.
Chris Ellery is the author of The Big Mosque of Mercy, poems based on his experience as a Fulbright teacher/scholar in Syria. His most recent collection is One Like Silence.
