If you are staying in Damascus
and long for somewhere cooler
the question that you ought to ask is:
“How do I find Malula?”
In mountains of the Qalamun,
most ancient of cool havens,
men worship there the God triune
in words the language mavens
adore since they are most archaic;
remotely, in the breezes,
the sound of spoken Aramaic
reminds them then of Jesus.
Example: when they say: “Our Father
who art in heaven,” they
don’t use the Arabic, but rather
words Jesus used to pray.
Their tongue is virtually extinct,
linguistic dinosaurus;
its meanings vague and indistinct,
unless you’ve a thesaurus,
but though they can’t adjudicate
in Aramaic laws
with which Jews still Talmudicate
behind their temple doors,
it seems that thirty thousand manage
to keep their language viable,
alive as English, French and Spanish,
although extinction’s liable.
Since words have no equivalence
like x’s algebraic,
I do not feel ambivalence
when using Aramaic
in many of my prayers and studies —
its death would cause me anguish;
keep speaking it, Malula buddies,
the Rabbis’ holy language.
I’ll endnote this with an amazing
thought that raised my brow,
Malul in Hebrew denotes “phrasing”.
Sarah wondered how
what she from angel guests had learned
could happen, and she laughed,
and their divine prediction spurned,
regarding more than daft
the promise of a baby boy
as first they’d told his dad.
Her laughter was a sign of joy,
though she considered mad
what they’d predicted speaking Heb-
rew, in her hearing, and
to Honest Abe, who’s known as Ib-
rahim now in that land
to Muslims who now speak Ara-
bic, but not Aramaic,
in which both Abraham and Sarah
could conversations make,
a claim for which some proofs are found
in my book, Legal Friction.
Read them, I think they are as sound
as Genesis’ prediction.
Gershon Hepner
Legal Friction, Gershon Hepner, Peter Lang Publishing Inc, 2010
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
