{"id":23253,"date":"2020-08-14T13:07:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T12:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=23253"},"modified":"2020-08-14T13:07:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T12:07:14","slug":"a-sightseer-in-beirut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=23253","title":{"rendered":"A sightseer in Beirut"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Blue of the dome alongside<\/p>\n<p>sandstone of the church<\/p>\n<p>atop the city skyline.<\/p>\n<p>In the morning the vast inspiring<\/p>\n<p>Al Amin Mosque.<\/p>\n<p>Heads covered feet bare.<\/p>\n<p>Under the chandeliers<\/p>\n<p>our whispered voices<\/p>\n<p>echoes of centuries.<\/p>\n<p>Next as the sun sets<\/p>\n<p>to the sound of<\/p>\n<p>Come All Ye Faithful,<\/p>\n<p>a carol of my childhood,<\/p>\n<p>we climbed the spiral stairs<\/p>\n<p>to stand at the feet<\/p>\n<p>of the Mother of Christ,<\/p>\n<p>the Lady of Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>Her hands stretching out to the city.<\/p>\n<p>Today in the first summer of Covid-19<\/p>\n<p>a new and bloody image.<\/p>\n<p>Chemicals stored, lying in wait<\/p>\n<p>an inevitable explosion.<\/p>\n<p>Citizens neglected. Unprotected.<\/p>\n<p>The mushroom cloud left central Beirut in ruins.<\/p>\n<p>Crisis on crisis<\/p>\n<p>In their masks against the virus<\/p>\n<p>the people with a fury protested.<\/p>\n<p>Demanding justice. Craving change.<\/p>\n<p>Standing up together.<\/p>\n<p>That New Year I was struck by<\/p>\n<p>the shared city line of a cross and a minaret.<\/p>\n<p>Memories evoked.<\/p>\n<p>Resilience. Determination.<\/p>\n<p>Above all I remember the people&#8217;s generosity.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>By Joy Johnson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the morning the vast inspiring<\/p>\n<p>Al Amin Mosque.<\/p>\n<p>Heads covered feet bare.<\/p>\n<p>Under the chandeliers<\/p>\n<p>our whispered voices<\/p>\n<p>echoes of centuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[158,576],"wps_subtitle":"The resilience of Beirut's communities inspired Unite's Joy Johnson to write this poem on the recent tragic blast ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23256,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253\/revisions\/23256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}