Leaning on the railing of my terrace, I religiously relished the break of day, the fullness of the first coffee, the voluptuousness of the first cigarette, and the dawn of a seventy-third spring lavished by mother nature infinite magnanimity.
And if the veil of the night agonizing remained dense enough to hide the details of the wide panoramic circular kissing the top of my tower, the Metn Mountains north to the Gulf of Dbaiyé through the Achrafieh hill and Beirut port, balsamic air of the summer until I carried along the esplanade subtle vibrations of the eternal Mediterranean night bathed in moonlight, whose magic hyaline beautifully composed with the frangipani lascivious spell, has involved the innocent freshness of orange blossoms.
And I found myself gaping helpless before a full moon hung inconceivable nadir indigo, whose spidery tentacles seemed close enough to silently sucking me into its orbit Ice absolute deity of darkness with me for idolatry light and the Sun, rivals in fierce devotion to the mystical zeal of Akhenaton the Heretic.
The hideousness, disgrace and the alterations made by man al'Eden land temporarily disappear under the thick blanket of shade and serenity to leave room as mysterious voices of the night, the hoot of a choked owl, the howl of a distant dog lost, the stubborn chirp of crickets and the whispering of the night breeze through the trees in eternity interstellar studded with myriads of ephemeral remains of homes off in an immemorial past.
The night is soft and mild, and the unforgivable savagery of anarchy urban hides under its vault impenetrable to leave a huge piercing clear horizon, and the mountain of garbage that Beirutis Karantina derisively call''Mount''el-Murr's flux seen and false promises excellence during his protracted stay in the Ministry of Interior to get rid of, no longer exists. Only remain the fairy glow of a Mediterranean port reflected by whose wisdom is matched only by the indulgence.
Night is timeless. From the top of my vain perch made of glass, concrete and steel, I found the sky of the past, the age of innocence and the second house along the old paternal''''Road to Damascus, where I spent the rest of my childhood and much of my youth before war not come away, and twenty years remains, to places where there is no return.
Complies with chronic amnesia that characterizes the conscious Lebanese person, except a few survivors no longer mentions this mythical path that started from the beating heart of Beirut, the center of Place des Martyrs, ran along what was called during the dark years:''green line''separating the two Beirut, Furn el-crossed Chebbak and Ain el-Rummaneh which was still semi THE STATE of town farm, branched off to the heights of Mkalles before starting the ascent of Mount Lebanon (Lebanon as the only mentions the story), and lead to the Bekaa Valley and the old granary of Rome.
The hardest has been taken, the rest became relatively easy, a plate last step leading up to the borders quietly mark the end of the national territory and the threshold of entry to the Gulag ...
include the legendary Silk Road and the spices, the Orient Express line and that of Hijaz that sublimated in the Western imaginary stories of the choristers of European colonialism and particularly Victorian, the road to Damascus qu'arpentèrent along the centuries merchants and exiles, and conquerors thinkers, philosophers and renegades, saints and pilgrims deserve a place in the same memory of the East, if we are not too absorbed to determine if the maternity of Jesus returned to Mary daughter of David Mariam bint or if Omran and was born in Bethlehem in a barn or under a palm tree in Arabia. Clinging
the old wrought iron bars of the balcony railing of the old and little above it, a child somewhere in time, patiently watched the lighted street of a pale street lamp and the two ends were lost under a coat night. Preceded
a flickering light and a squeal of axles involved in a clatter of hooves on the tarmac, the first cart in the queue slowly emerged from the darkness and the kid did not miss a beat of the show long procession marched proudly in the light of oil lamps and trot to the sound of bells, the clapping whips and the cries of the teamsters.
Officers greenery, herbs and other garden produce, trucks carrying vegetables and fruits which I have found the fragrance and flavor every night roamed the road to Damascus in reverse, with the destination Final Martyrs Square and more accurately belly Beirut * what were the souks , real Halles lush and picturesque course that have disappeared, replaced partly by the massive and incongruous mosque-mausoleum of Mohammed el Amin, and Holy Sepulchre Grand Benefactor which rests in the middle of the square arid and joyless become the Square Nothing.
Ibrahim Tyan.
* belly of Paris, Emile Zola (1873)
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