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Mohammed Ali mosque
First day in Cairo.
Relaxed on the floor of the great mosque,
light and happy voices streaming.
Beauty and inaccessibility radiating from
the vaulted ceiling.
On the way here -
the City of the Dead.
Those without homes
making homes
in the cemetery spaces.
On the way from here –
miles of garbage-topped,
shabby,
concrete apartments.
Most of twenty million people
living in poverty.
The grandeur of the mosques,
the hardship of the streets.
The heart weeps.
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