Petra - a Split in the Rock

Trip Start Mar 02, 2008
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Trip End Mar 26, 2008


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Flag of Jordan  ,
Friday, March 7, 2008

Petra

Petra: you can see the postcards,
You can read the archaeology books,
You can even see Indiana Jones,
None prepares you for the wonder of the real thing.
 
Some icons, statues, details may be worn away,
The message of the memorial structures still overwhelms,
Nabataeans wanted the importance of their leaders to live on,
That they certainly achieved.
 
Featureless rock, first colored and streaked by Mother Nature,
Then formed and rough shaped by wind and water.
Brought to life as monuments and facades by early civilizations,
Now a magnet drawing we modern travelers to behold the miracle.
 
Petra spreads for countless acres,
Beduoins still live in outlying monuments,
Clothes hanging to dry on stelae
Crypts used as bathrooms.
 
Those streaked and swirled colors provided by Mother Nature,
Represent wind and water ripples formed a billion years ago.
How fascinating the Nabataeans could use those patterns so effectively
Making cold, hard, stone come alive with vibrant color.

Illiterate children, fluent in: 10 postcards for a dollar!
Camels with tasseled tack, provide us native (?) color
Bedouins with the prized registry number for their horse
That horse took over when the hike back became oppressive.

And so: Petra, a poem of the Rose City (thanks Brett)
Old sketches by David Roberts,
200 photos in my trusty Nikon,
More than those, it will be memories we treasure.
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