Petra Poem by Gert Strydom

When a person visits the remains of the age-old city Petra
then you see steps that go up into the heights
and it does lie beautiful almost untouched as on a painting
but when you do at that place stand still for just a mere moment
and look at the city that was chopped from stone
you do notice a kind of curse
when you do look at the altars of a forbidding god

and then you do notice that everything in that city
is aimed at the sun,
that those tombs, temples and banquet halls
is in honour of the prince of darkness
and then a person does wonder why humanity does rebel
against a God that with compassionate love
does try to visit each person

and in silence Petra is still witnessing of its awful history,
of people sacrificing their children
to stop the vengeance of an evil god.