Wax so eloquent where
The Atlantic Mountains embrace their echoes
The waiting Sea rinses the letters
In its frothy flair
As the patient sands sizzle
In their laundered intensity
A few legendary steps from a Forest named
For the inimitable Bard of the Congo**
Songbirds sweep above the trees
Their conversations held together
By a string of chatty tropes
Overheard by the listening sun
The wind wanders around the sky
In search of a worthy idiom
Liquid whispers, syllables in stone
The Talking Walls of Assilah
Converse in parables and problematic silence
Their rainbow murals redolent
Of a restless history and a geo-
Graphy of stubborn scars
Walls talk in Asilah
The past lends the present a listening ear
* An ancient town on the northwest tip of the Atlantic coast of Morocco
** Tchicaya U Tam’si.
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