Night Walk in Beirut - A Poem Based on a True Story

This is a poem about a true event that took place in 1976 during the civil war in the Lebanon. One moonlit night after learning of yet another friend and colleague who had perished in the carnage of what was then Beirut, a young woman slipped out of bed, out of her house in the Muslim area and walked four kilometers through the christian area to her own freedom. Perhaps before she slipped into the clear waters of eternal sleep she imagined the lights of Cyprus and freedom just over the distant horizon.

Shades of sorrow surround your eyes.

As somewhere in the darkness a baby cries.

Lovers pass unnoticed, hand in hand

As your steps drag lowly through the sand.

Down a moonlit path to the sea you face.

Moonbeams hold you in their tender embrace.

The jewel’s of the night, which the sea has cast.

Mirror your tears of a future past.

Across the yellow ribbon you pass.

Your passage cracks the sea like a pane of glass.

 Just a brief pause as your breath it implores.

Then the moonlight dances on empty shores.