More on: Middle East

I read of a man a thousand miles south who heard a large crowd passing by.
He laid down his shears on his father’s land and joined the northbound caravan.

We watched from behind ballistic glass and mounted guns and steel doors with hinged openings large enough for a rifle barrel or for a bunch of contorted fingers to press through and wiggle return greetings, muted waves, as we rolled on and up the mountain. We engaged with no enemy combatants.

A. The Moroccan Quarter, Jerusalem¹   Will that museum, the Museum of the Wailing Wall, ever welcome a swallow, or shake the hand of the Mediterranean, _________________as Cadmus and Ulysses did? Will it ever bring a woman back to life, the woman Europe was named after? Peace unto you, human steps, _________________you have become an…

THIS IS WHAT THINGS ARE LIKE HERE. The Palestinian fedayeen raids continue without mercy. Hardly a week goes by without a civilian being shot or ambushed in the Israeli Sector. Aubrey visits now and then, the young man’s face unalterably severe. He says there is a sense of foreboding in the air, a quiet dread,…

Dennis Covington is the author of five books, including the novel Lizard (Laurel Leaf) and the memoir Salvation on Sand Mountain (Perseus), a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award in nonfiction. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Vogue, Esquire, Redbook, Georgia Review, Oxford American, and many other…