The crescent moon, as always too exact
And too high-burnished for a neutral fact
Of nature, in our Christian skyof calm
Is warlike science fiction of Islam.
I am a Janissary Corps Jules Verne,
Not myself Ottoman, though what I earn
Is from Sultan. So I chronicle
His far experiment that you know well,
Although as using other properties.
The period, as you will recognize,
Is after real gunpowder, though before
That powder was dependable. My Corps,
So many thousand strong, upon a high
Plateau in Anadolu, of a ply
Of Balkan forests and of pliant horn
From all the oxen in our column torn,
And bonded for a tensile covering
(The hide, cut into strips, we twist for string)
Is forming, like a template of the Ark,
A hugh crossbow. Into the moonless dark
It will release, no arrow for a Djinn,
But yet another bow, one smaller, thin.
Of profile airfoil, that will bear a third,
To be released by clockwork. You have heard
How stars unnatural point out of birth
Of prophets and how stars that fell to earth
Are stepping stones to Heaven as they part.
Jerusalem, thy rock is met by art.
By jacks the size of trees the bow is raised;
The windless turns and it is drawn. Apprised
In Istanbul that his design is done,
Sinan himself comes out to count it down.
The sounding string forms shock waves in the air;
The lesser bows climb out of sight. Cold, bare,
To emptiness returns the plain below.
But, shining in the ice of space, our bow
(My quote: Deliberate anachronism is an artistic device available to cultures in a late stage of their development.)
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