Children of the World Paint Jerusalem1 Jerusalem is a circus. The streets are a wild celebration. There is a parade, a green truck Carrying flowers and an angel With a trumpet the size of a child, And a little yellow car Stuffed with clowns, their red suits Pressing against every window. Then a procession of animals, A purple ostrich, a pink giraffe, A golden lion with a green head And a bright blue mane. On the sidewalks, people dance, Skipping in circles like wedding reels. On a corner, Moses stands With his tablets lifted over his head, glaring At the Mexican boy with the fiddle. A man with one eye throws knives Outlining the flowing burqa Of his lovely assistant. A red and white plane flies overhead. From the air, Jerusalem looks like a heart, The six roads threading in and out like veins Or the legs of a beetle. In the plane, someone gasps. My uncle Pavia! As light as a cloud! Do you see? And someone opens a cage on the roof of a church And sends a flock of white angels soaring into Heaven.
1 Bantam Books, 1978, “110 extraordinary paintings of Jerusalem from school children around the world”.
