City of Stone and Wind.

This city and this wind never leave me. Blowing strongly in your face, surrounding you, compounding all your senses.

Everything -- the smell of the zatar, the heat of the freshly baked pita, haerdi men and young female soldiers -- that enveloped me at the shuk is all that surrounds me now, in the dusk, sitting on this stone, at the British military cemetery.

At the rear of the cemetery stands a memorial to "MEN WITH NO KNOWN GRAVES." Their names carved in white Jerusalem stone, sons of the British Empire, privates and officers alike.

The wind is wearing away their names.

Jerusalem: the city of the stone and the wind.


Did these sons of the British Empire die to have their names emblazoned on this eternal stone in this ancient city, forever left far from home?

The air we breathe flows around the world, from Philadelphia to Rio and on again to Yerushalayim. Science tells us that one breath will make its way around the world in seven years.

Whose am I breathing now?