When I was little more than a boy my parents

Took me to Palmyra as a reward for my exams

It was located northeast of Damascus in Syria

Which seemed rather exotic to me

But I did not show my hidden excitement

And apart from an English couple named Daniel and Jane

We were the only English people there

All the others were either French German or Dutch

At the time I was obsessed with the lost jewels of ancient Palmyra

Which the poet Baudelaire had dreamt of many years previously

But knew that these jewels were nothing more than a poets dream

Lost in time and times ruin

The English couple fascinated me though

As they seemed to silently orbit each other

Sometimes together sometimes alone and sometimes not even seen

I thought that might be lovers or ghosts but could not be sure

But I watched their every move when in the desert city

It was said in the Bible that Palmyra was built by Solomon

A city which was by now crumbling into the seas of sand

This was all that was left after the passage of the counted years

There was a modern town nearby with pleasant restaurants and hotels

Our hotel was on the road to the ruins which hinted of mirages in the white heat

All life that had once been there was now sleeping beneath the dusts of the desert

On the day before we departed I saw the Englishwoman bury

What appeared to be a ring in the sands near a temple

She said nothing but lingered for a while before vanishing from my view

I never saw either Jane or Daniel again as they did not return with us

This haunted me for many years as did my visit to Palmyra

I often longed to return with my family and retrace the steps of my previous visit

But knew that this would be impossible

As the wheels of history had moved towards

A hell that I could not even begin to understand

I wondered if Jane’s ring was still beneath the sand

It is likely that it would have remained there

No matter what was happening elsewhere

As this is the way that history works in the desert