Baghdad… The Dream That Never Grows Old

Baghdad is not read, it is lived—like the cry of a muezzin intertwined with the chants of churches, like the breath of the Souq al-Safafira when brass instruments play their melodies on the skin of passersby, like the fingers of the artisan pouring light onto the wood of the shanashils, allowing the sun to sneak shyly between the eyelashes of the alleys. Baghdad is not seen, but touched in the first cup of tea on the Kerada sidewalks when cafés spread their faces among the dreamers, in the laughter of a child running through the stalls of Mutanabbi, searching for a book that transcends his age, in the sigh of a passerby on the Republic Bridge gazing at the Tigris as if writing a letter that hasn’t arrived in a thousand years, in the gasp of the night owls above Abu Nuwas Street as the moon combs its hair over the water, in a flute’s voice floating from an old house window in Karakh, and in the whisper of a lover leaving his pulse on the banks of Rusafa, afraid it might get lost in the streets.

Baghdad is not a city; Baghdad is a being walking through markets wearing a cloak embroidered with the scent of cardamom and saffron. Baghdad is a woman who perfumes herself with maqamat, strutting with pride between the strings, raising an eyebrow as she crosses the Tigris, swaying like a dancer sprinkling water over seagulls, who flutter in fright before returning. Baghdad is a man possessed by poems, casting his letters into the Tigris, to be returned by the wind after centuries. Baghdad cannot be told, it speaks within you, changes you, reorders your memory, telling you that times fall in its alleys only to rise again, that ancient tales are not myths but lights shining over the sidewalks when the rain washes them clean. Baghdad does not sleep; it dozes in the arms of the evening, opening its eyes with the call to dawn, applying its kohl with the first ray of sunlight touching the shanashils in Jadriya, then it moves on, stumbling over the footsteps of vendors at the gates of Shorja, pausing at the first poem recited in the Zihawi café, then smiling and continuing its way, as if still searching for itself along this never-ending path.

O Baghdad, how does the clay preserve your steps since Sumer without tiring? How does the water redraw your face every evening without repeating? How do you remain the mistress of time without being burdened by it? How does the sound of maqam rise in your streets, wrapping around the minarets, melting in the columns of ancient houses, then scattering with the wind like a prayer soaring to a sky that does not answer? How do the seagulls wander in your embrace, get lost, and then return? How does the water write your name in every wave, then erase it, then return it, as if it refuses to forget?

Baghdad, O woman walking on the edge of a sword without bleeding, O anthem that has never been completed since the first string of the oud of history, O dream that repeats as though it never wants to wake, O heart with roads branching in it without losing its way, O ecstasy left by the Tigris on the water before the sunset swallows it, O pain, O laughter, O gasp, O silence, O echo of the maqam that has continued to resonate between the walls and then clung to memory, O hymn hummed by the dawn on the minarets of Karakh, O poem recited by the waves every evening to the ears of Rusafa, then returns, whispering to the Tigris as if trying to understand how you are, how you do not die, how all this love, all this ruin, all this pulse, all this wandering, all this light… and how, each time, you are reborn anew!