Edward Whittemore: Jerusalem Poker

And feasting through the ages, even that. Ah yes you do, that's what you think of. And you strain so hard to hear those whispers as the years go by. You want so much to hear them again and you do try, just try and try, you do that even though the whispers are dimmer, are farther away this year than last, last than the year before. And yes, it's true, even though you know the wonders of their world are beyond you, always were and always will be. You'll just never see them, just never, never have and never will, but still you go on believing in them and trying to hear the tunes of their dancing and the songs sung at their feasts, mysterious whispers in the sparkling sunlight, the whispers you heard when you were a child so long ago.

So long ago.

Bernini saw the tears in Joe's eyes again. He was going to run over and hug him but suddenly it was all right. Suddenly Joe was jumping up and down and laughing, running on the sand and laughing, the man his mother had told him about, the magical Irishman she had once met in Jerusalem.

Well no, not told him. Not in those words. But he had heard it anyway.

What is it, Father? What did you find?

Joe whooped. He leapt in the air and held up a stone.

Do you see it, lad? Flat and thin and just right for the asking? A wafer to fly and fly for sure. Now how many times would you say it's going to skim on the sunlight out there before we no longer see it? Before it slips beneath the waves and speeds away as fast as a fish swimming from one end of the world to the other? Just going and going where the sea goes. How many times, Bernini?

Nine times?

Nine times easy. Eleven and twelve times easy. And then after that, one more time in honor of this special day. Watch it and you'll see I'm right, lad, and it will always be so, skimming on the sunlight, swimming and swimming from here where we stand by the sea as you've learned to do, looking and listening now thirteen times easy on your birthday, as Haj Harun has done these three thousand years in Jerusalem, as the baking priest said right there in the Holy City while leavening the four concerns of his life, the four winds and the four corners of his holy kingdom. Yes, our holy kingdom. Made for us if we'd only believe it. So watch this hand of mine fly now. Watch it, Bernini lad. And watch this precious stone skip for us in the sunlight to the very ends of the earth.

It can't go that far, Father.

Oh yes it can and much more. Twice that, to tell all. In fact it will go so far it will circle the world and come back to us. That's right, that's what it will do. And if you look hard tomorrow you'll find this very same precious stone right here on the beach, right here by the sea where you watch and listen, its long journey made and a long list of marvels witnessed for sure. So watch now. Here flies our dream on the sun.

The End