Dust of Egypt, Fire of Zion
The heat in Jerusalem was a physical thing that summer. It lay upon the city like a woolen blanket soaked in brine, heavy and suffocating. The dust from the southern road, however, was a different kind of affliction. It arrived…
Song of Solomon’s Sunset Praise
The heat of the day was finally softening, the kind of late afternoon light that turns everything to honey and gold. We were walking, the dust of the path fine and pale on our sandals, leaving the formal gardens behind…
The Stone and the Share
The heat in the forge was a living thing. It pressed against Eliazar’s skin, a heavy, shimmering blanket that smelled of coal and scorched iron. He worked the bellows, the leather groaning, until the heart of the fire glowed a…
The Scribe and the Enduring Refrain
The lamp oil was nearly spent. Its faint, guttering light threw long shadows across the small cell, catching the dust motes that drifted in the still, warm air. Asaph, his fingers stiff and corded with age, traced the edge of…
Evening Psalm on a Hillside
The heat of the day had begun to soften, that long, amber hour when the world seems to hold its breath. I sat on a flat stone at the edge of my small, terraced field, the smell of turned earth…
The King’s Seed
The scent of cedar was fading. Solomon could still smell it, a ghost of resin and sawdust clinging to the stones of the nearly-complete palace, but it was being overtaken by the damp, earthy breath of a Jerusalem spring. He…
Song in the Cave
The waiting, I think, is the worst of it. Not the heat, though the sun beats the rock into a griddle and the air shimmers like a veil of cheap glass. Not the thirst, though your tongue swells and sticks…
Shepherd Under Majestic Stars
The air tasted of dust and distance. Eliav’s cloak was a thin defense against the chill seeping up from the stones of the hillside. His flock, a smattering of wooly shadows, huddled together, their occasional bleats the only sound breaking…
Bildad’s Unyielding Verdict
The heat was a physical presence in the air, a weight that pressed down on the shoulders and made every breath taste of dust. Bildad the Shuhite shifted on the rug, his joints aching from days of sitting in this…
The Weight of Remembering
The air was cold that morning, a sharp, dry chill that came down from the hills around Jerusalem. It bit through the thin linen of their robes, but the people standing in the square before the Water Gate did not…