You played Arabic music
on your fiddle in the airport
and we laughed about
the possible repercussions
at such a time and place
where modern nomads
arrive and depart again
through security gates
under surveillance cameras
removing their shoes like pilgrims
entering a holy shrine to pray
but if they pray at all its
not to enter paradise
just that general direction
upward into a crowded sky
and safely back to earth again
without incident or exaltation.

I see you clearly in my mind  
the moment you touch
bow to fiddle, the half-breath
and bend of your body
before the first note is struck
of an ancient tune played
for a weary Mid-East traveler,
a brief melodious oasis
from suspicious stares
and polite condemnation,
closing your eyes as if in prayer
as I do now, imagining Babylon
where this same music
lightened those nomadic hearts
lifting them up and over the walls
out into the empty silent night
holy night where the moon and stars

shown down undiminished
by ambient artificial light

onto the undulating unadorned
body of the earth as she listens (still)
for the voices of mystic Persian poets
harmonizing on the desert wind
with music from a distant future
flying in on silver wings and a prayer.