(Other Links to Africa, Images of Zellij)

Merzouga

The night glides like a snake and the hours add coils. Hustlers slip through the cracks in the dunes. Turbans, jelabas, men with faces I can't read (hashish hidden in the darker corners). Black teeth. And the gypsy woman keeps spinning, keeps singing, and when she stops the sand is suddenly damp and cold, and hustlers make their last desperate attempts and then scatter among the dunes in directions I can't understand, walking lines cut into the sky by wind sculpted sand, and casting deep shadows.

But right now I'm dancing with Sarina, a young american girl from the villa. Her parents are missionaries in Tanzania, but here she's suspended between drum beats then suddenly she's into an energy that reaches in all directions, and she's laughing, and I can see into her mischief when she looks at me sideways. She eats chocolate that way too. But later in the night when the music stops she's side-eyed with a man from the desert. And I'm watching his eyes and their shadows too.

Our first full day in the dark-orange Sahara, we rode camelbacks into the dunes, delicate mathematical creatures, smooth. On their tips grains of sand reflect the color of the sky and that mirage is like a mist. I watched for ten minutes a bowl of wind bursting off one peak into dirt devils. The sand is everywhere, in my eyes, my ears, my clothes, my pockets, and my hair is gray with dust.

We haven't seen a day of rain in Fes, but returning in the setting sun a sandstorm picked up the desert, and moments later a thunderstorm ripped the dunes. We saw lightening flashes, and closed the windows to keep from eating the dust. And rivers of rain collected in flash floods. And our host served us lamb with cinammon, fruits, and a dark gravy of honeyed onions, and vegetables.

I've been sleeping all week since, and sometimes dreaming about my trip. And sometimes frustrated by the crazy chaotic city of Fes, a kind of culture shock softened only by calligraphy lessons from a gentle, quirky arabic poet, and the thick hands of my professor teaching the darbouka, a middle eastern drum.

Today I'm walking into the old medina on invitation to dine with a Moroccan family. And searching for the right gift.

The Ghostlight Music

The stones begin to fly.

Drumming in the Atlas

In Beni Melal we watched a man play the drums and his fingers they were like dreams the way they flashed and turned, floated, translucent with motion. Then the repetition, like a meditation, the flickering candles and dangling drops of light. A fire was burning in the heat of the drum and we were all incensensed with its smoke, and dizzy. I saw a man sitting accross the table; but only the whites of his eyes turned back deep within his head. And another man, sour and used, probably drunk, banging a knife against a glass.

And when the night ended the proprieter blew out the candles one by one, so that as the room descended into darkness I saw the drummers fading away, the music turn to a whisper, and the drummer's skin dark orange and the light of the last candle burning in his eyes. And then the drums dark, invisible, silent. I walked home in the night to my hotel and laid down to sleep in the pitch black.

Making Magic

I've dreamed of a thousand golden lights
hidden in this genie lamp.

Chefchouan

In the morning we climbed the mountain. And on top of the mountain, across of sharp ridge in the Rif chain, a shephard appeared out of the woods with his flock. The cool wind blew stiffly, carrying songs and mysteries across the desert. Holding his staff on the rock he stood silent, waited, then turned to face the wind. The shepard walked closer to us. And then we saw him pause again. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his hand. He opened it. It was a bag of hashish and he said to us,

"It is best quality."

I looked up onto the lonely, innocent mountain and hungry sheep, and I laughed and shook his hand, "No thank you" and then he shuffled his feet again. He stepped back, paused, and looked at the wind. And then he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his hand. He opened it. We saw a ball of tarish, black hashish oil. I laughed at this new temptation and shook his hand, "No thank you". And then he shuffled his feet again. He stepped back, paused, and looked at the wind. And then he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his hand. He opened it. Crushed marijuana leaves. I laughed. And I shook his hand, "No thank you".

And he shuffled his feet and then he reached into his pocket. And he opened his hand. And we looked at it and saw it was the Kur'an. And then he opened it to a prayer and pointed his finger and he said,

"This is the one truth."

The Sides of the Heart

He holds the plum, the fruit of desire,
the soft syrup that melts into purple and blue,
the silent thunder...
spilling itself everywhere.

The Last Day

What happened yesterday at the ancient tomb of Moulay Idriss, like walking inside a sea of phantoms, I saw old ghosts, and the archway filled itself with hovering faces. Saints red-dressed holding firelight without candles and chanting monks walking on water and moss.

They made my bed there on the floor of the tomb; and asked me to sleep in the sea of melting faces.

I saw that my feet weren't touching the ground anymore, and I took off my shoes. In the corner a man knelt down and began to pray. The carpet on the floor has been there for a thousand years.