Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	Jerusalem
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	Via dolorosa, full of smells, Fig smell, spice smell, smell donkey dung, Smell of Franciscan garden, overhung With palms and tumbling creepers.  Sound of bells On lop-eared sheep, on towers, on trotting mules Hammered by urchin heels; bells tongued and rung By pilgrim-trapping merchants, their wares young, Their wiles as old as commerce or as fools. Buy genuine thorny crown or cross of gold, Buy bibles intricately mother-o’-pearled ― Limitless market, no satiety. Christ stumbles as he walks here, trying to hold What heavier load ― the sins of all the world, Or dead weight of the whole world’s piety. 1976 The Dancing Dust and other poems, 1983