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MOTHER OF PEARL
Come in, signor. Quickly. Let me show you round.
Bend, please! The gate is four foot three.
We call it The Door of Humility.
You can interpret this in many ways. Some say
this little entry, such a mighty structure,
speaks to us today of hope, of other bad times
our church survived. So - take your breath.
We’re safe now, friend. Touch the inside wall
and you have at your fingers' end
the start of the Church Herself. The basilica you see
was built by Emperor Justinian, sixth century AD.
But under is church of Constantine, consecrated 325
to Maria Theotokos. We honour Mary-Giving-Birth-
to-God. Not the Madonna with her Child
though her lily’s our native flower. You're free, seigneur.
You can go to limesinks of the north and find
it blooming now. White hands of leathery velvet. Moony, wild.
Stand here, in nave, I’ll lift a hatch. See caramel
snakeskin glimmer, lower floor? That’s mosaic, cut
for Constantine in 324. Like carpet, isn't it? Our Church
is built on that. Mortar shells last week broke many - here -
but these tesserae, wine-dark waves in parallel,
amber geometries of seventeen hundred years, survive.
The church above is fortified, like praying heart.
Like castle, this is true. Signor, it had to be.
Look, sir, what’s happening now. Asylum
is Safe Place. (Sorry the smell. Step here, round citizens.)
But Justinian knew asylum’s Danger, too.
He built high walls round Bethlehem
so church could have wide doors. See the outline, triple-arched?
Welcoming, wouldn’t they be: impressive, those big
Big doors? They were blocked in, smoodged
Up in Ottoman years so Turkish giaours
Couldn’t gallop in on war stallions, full fig.
Did you bring water? Medicine? Food?
Well… come among the rows - a forest, isn’t it? -
of columns. Run your fingers down them. Local
sandstone, quarried from our hills
where fruit trees of the Bible are (must be) in bloom.
Pomegranate blossom, scarlet fizz against gloss leaves.
Mulberry, almond, purple cream of Judas trees
in flower just this season, when he hung himself.
See the flicker, when I open door a crack? Or
brachiating goldfish shimmer
on Corinth-petal capitals, every pillar? There’d be
a moonrise glisten if we lit the hanging lamps between.
Have you seen mother-of-pearl on column-heads before?
Our town is famous, sir, for mother-of-pearl.
We understand its vulnerability. How to incise curls
on brittle mucus cloud without it breaking. Other time,
I take you to my brother's shop, down steep crusader stairs
behind the church. We sell drop-earrings like milk air.
Translucent buttons, carved like roses, carved like birds.
In the Bible, it's a stable where He's born. Here, sir,
is a cave. Take my hand for steps to crypt. Dark,
narrow, yes, but Greek Orthodox run this part.
Even now, there'll be a candle. Emperor Hadrian
pronounced cave sacred, 135 AD, to pagan god, Adonis.
Was criminal act for Christians, telling stories of a Birth.
Dictator's nightmare, isn’t it, signor - you write it
in your paper - vulnerability?
Now here, the Manger! Touch it, that’s OK. Like Helena,
Roman empress. She crept here, scooped hand
in wall of living rock, found basin made of clay.
Her son built his basilica above.
They were late-comers to our faith. The Bible says
it's never too late to remake who you are. To reconsider.
In next cave Saint Jerome worked Bible into Latin.
Next cave, here, these too-short tombs commemorate
the Innocents. King Herod told soldiers to exterminate
little sons of Bethlehem. Did you see Schindler's List?
That guy on horse above some town, watching men
enter ghetto, bayonet doors, drag children
out of wardrobes, out from under beds?
That happened here also, in Manger Square
where you came in. All the mothers of Bethlehem
one by one, their mouths torn open, screaming for their sons.
In this cave, the One that got away was born.
But real stuff’s covered, you can’t see… Helena
sleeved the clay manger in silver, Justinian
put marble on these walls, roof, floor.
You like this outer curtain round the manger,
orange-flame brocade? My mother stitched the fringe.
The inner curtain, sky-blue silk like cupola
of heaven with racy-lacy angels, came from the Isle of Cos.
But the spot beneath, my friend (I may say, “friend”?),
is where He first touched earth. 1717, they tamped
this silver star in floor. Count them - fourteen
flaming points! Not perfect, marble’s stained
where cracks round screws have let in rain,
but looks like waving starfish, no?
Flat-lit from above by fourteen silver lamps
to represent communities all over world
who worship here. Our church is sustained
by every heart upon the planet. Even in Africa.
That's why you've come, sir, isn't it? You know, how
millions dream of wafers, liturgy and Pentecostal feast
at these two altars, facing across the cave. Altar
of Manger; and Altar of the Magi - look, turn round -
behind. Yes, wise men from the east stood here
in starry complicated robes. Here where you’re standing now.
Have you seen Shepherds' Field outside our town? That’s where
the sky lit up. Christmas cards in West have snow, and deer,
and holly. I have seen. But it happened here
with olive trees twisted like toffee in angel glow, our flowers
asleep in ground. Sparrow-wort. Broomrape. Yeruham iris, logo
of Society for Protection of the Nature, in Israel.
In our shop we sell, also, figures carved in olive wood.
Three different kings. A donkey, ox and camel,
very beautiful. Shepherd boy carrying just-
born lamb on shoulder, running to tell
about the angel. Our church is part of Bethlehem.
Convents cling like snowdrop bulbs around original.
They say it looks, in air, like ivory
carved from a single tusk. Our town must be
most captured, most destroyed, in history.
Persians sacked in 614, but left the church alone.
They saw the Wise Men's clothes on Byzantine
mosaic. They recognized the holiness. In 634
Arabs captured church, made shrine for Muslim prayer.
In 747 town was dust again - in earthquake - but same
thing happened, church not harmed.
In eleventh century, Crusaders in the West,
was feeling against Christians here. Of course there was.
But Al-Hakim didn't danger church because of Muslim shrine.
Everything played its part. Before Western invasion,
capture of Jerusalem, Tancredi rode to Bethlehem
with Baldwin of le Bourg. They took our church
(we’ve seen a lot of “taking”, sir) in 1099.
Baldwin was crowned on Christmas Day
1101, first “High Crusader King”.
In 1187, his “kingdom” came to end. Nothing here lasts long
that’s from outside. In 1192 Salah al-Din
allowed priests back to tend the altar.
Khwarizmian Turks took Bethlehem in 1244
but left basilica alone… Am I boring you?
Each time, so far, our white small town
was crushed to powder-stone, the church survived.
That’s all I meant to say. Everyone’s let it be.
Yet it looked by 1350 as you see
it now: a citadel. All the West, all Christendom,
gave money to protect. Philip of Burgundy
sent pinewood over Mediterranean Sea. Edward IV
sent roofing-lead, packed in straw from English fields.
Just so America, will send help any day, you’ll see. Is Christian
land. We have two hundred citizens here. Mothers, children,
monks; no food, no… You’re leaving, sir? If you think
my voice is wrong, I'm not myself today. I would have taken you to
the garden, shown you flowers of the Bible that belongs
to everyone. Blue alkanet, white asphodel… This is your story, too.
I thought you were a friend.
What happens to the man who has betrayed
his moral anchor, or its earthly image,
glances at crafts of holiness then looks away? Bend,
please. The gate is four foot three. Careful, signor. Shooting comes
not just from tanks. Are snipers, too all round our church, on cranes.
But maybe you know them, and they know you.
Other time if you come, it may be all you see is tinsel
among rubble, mother-of-pearl
dust, heaven rolled back like bolt of mourning cloth
on a market stall. And under, all the darnels of the Bible.
Spiny zilla, holy thistle, Syrian acanthus, grey nightshade, Christ Thorn.
Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Easter 2002
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