THE ROAD TO MDINA

By Deb Wiley

	The road to Mdina lies
	strewn through stone walls and aqueducts.
	The Jerusalem pines a dusky green
	complete the earth-tones of a goddess' features.
	Limestoned, honey-colored churches
	bear the Cross broght by the sea.
	A divine shipwreck brought St. Paul himself
	(a fact repeated and proclaimed
	in Mdina's suburb Rabat,
	the home of St. Paul's Bar.)

	The road to Mdina lies 
	buried under the centuries' dust.
	Once imprinted by Arab's sandals and knight's horse,
	it now records a still-violent passage;
	no longer are daggers flashing, pistols retorting,
	but strident horns and clattering engines
	speed their way past the Jerusalem pines.
	They forget the danger once lurking there
	where eyes from the bastions picked out the spies
	easing their way toward that same village profile.

	The road to Mdina lies
	like a motif in my mind; it is
	a day like amber, the liquid poured over
	the bastions of the Silent City.
	The waiting walls watch for the return
	of her noblemen, those deserters
	who filtered out
	like flies circling round a dog's body
	leaving a bleached skeleton standing
	in the golden streams of a Maltese sun.

	The road to Mdina lies
	twenty minutes from the holiday flats.
	Yet even inundated Mdina holds her pride;
	secrets are kept concealed from prying camera-eyes,
	hiding her peace locked in the courtyards
	of Norman villas tucked away
	in labyrinthine alleystreets.
	Masses move and tour guides guide
	but only the cathedral bells know
	the magic tranquillity they split at midnight.

	The road to Mdina lies
	forever imprisoned on my map of Malta
	where it shows as a line of black,
	leaving the ignorant to assume
	that the old capital city has died;
	leaving those faithful to her spell
	to know the secrets within the gates of
	Notabile, Citta Vecchia, an ancient one.
	She breathes her calm from mid-island stance
	and sighs her farewell breeze through Jerusalem pines.

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	At the time Deb Wiley wrote this poem, she was a
	Luther College (Iowa, USA) student participating in the
	college's semester abroad program in Malta. She is now
	a feature writer for the Des Moines, Iowa, REGISTER.

	E-mail to Deb Wiley.

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