...the bird is on the wing...

Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"

We sat on the patio of Hart House in the shade, myself and the two lovely ladies, talking of school and politics and, because he had spoken at Columbia the day before, Ahmadinejad, over lunch. This led to religion, unsurprisingly, and talking about the "ungodly" teenage rebels in Iran, and how we thought of course it was inevitable. You force your straight-edged constrained idea of religion on a population, indoctrinating them year after year in schools and in the media, of course they will rebel. Of course they will turn your god out (and not knowing another, go without).

From above, from the third floor windows shutters flung wide, the sounds of the Azan (the Muslim call to prayer), streamed out and found us, discussing as we were our own unholiness. Inviting us back, invoking a divine intervention, determined not to let us go quite yet, it settled over us like a benediction.