Wearing our lawns like a green prayer-shawl,
Brandishing houses like silver flags.
Behind him dance his pupils,
Dancing not so high
And chanting the rabbi's prayer,
But not so sweet.
And who waits for him
On a throne at the end of the street
But the Sabbath Queen.
Down go his hands
Into the spice-box of earth,
And there he finds the fragrant sun
For a wedding ring,
And draws her wedding finger through.
Now back down the street they go,
Dancing higher than the silver flags.
His pupils somewhere have found wives too,
And all are chanting the rabbi's song
And leaping high in the perfumed air_
Who calls him Rabbi?
Cart-horse and dogs call him Rabbi,
And he tells them:
The Queen makes every Jew her lover_
I 7 1
And gathering on their green lawns
The people call him Rabbi,
And fill their mouths with good bread
And his happy song.
P R A Y E R O F M Y W I L D G R A N D F A T H E R
God, God, God, someone of my family
hated your love with such skill that you sang
to him, your private voice violating
his driiDl like a lost bee after pollen
in the brain. He gave you his children
opened on a table, and if a ram
ambled in the garden you whispered nothing
about that, nor held his killing hand.
It is no wonder fields and governments
rotted, for soon you gave him all your range,
drove all your love through that sting in his brain.
Nothing can flourish in your absence
except our faith that you are proved through him
who had his mind made mad and honey-combed.
72 I
I S A I A H
For G.C.S.
Between the mountains of spices
the cities thrust up pearl domes and filigree spires.
Never before was Jerusalem so beautiful.
In the sculptured temple how many pilgrims,
lost in the measures of tambourine and lyre,
kneeled before the glory of the ritual?
Trained in grace the daughters of Zion moved,
not less splendid than the golden statuary,
the bravery of ornaments about their scented feet.
Government was done in palaces.
Judges, their fortunes found in law,
reclining and cosmopolitan, praised reason.
Commerce like a strong wild garden
flourished in the street.
The coins were bright, the crest on coins precise,
new ones looked almost wet.
Why did Isaiah rage and cry,
Jerusalem is ruined,
your cities are burned with fire?
On the fragrant hills of Gilboa
were the shepherds ever calmer,
the sheep fatter, the white wool whiter?
There were fig trees, cedar, orchards
where men worked in perfume all day long.
New mines as fresh as pomegranates.
Robbers were gone from the roads,
the highways were straight.
There were years of wheat against famine.
I 73
Enemies? Who has heard of a righteous state
that has no enemies,
but the young were strong, archers cunning,
their arrows accurate.
Why then this fool Isaiah,
smelling vaguely of wilderness himself,
why did he shout,
Your country is desolate?
Now will I sing to my well-beloved
a song of my beloved touching her hair
which is pure metal black
no rebel prince can change to dross,
of my beloved touching her body
no false swearer can corrupt,
of my beloved touching her mind
no faithless counsellor can inflame,
of my behJved touching the mountains of spices
making them beauty instead of burning.
Now plunged in unutterable love
Isaiah wanders, chosen, stumbling
against the sculptured walls which consume
their full age in his embrace and powder
as he goes by. He reels beyond
the falling dust of spires and domes,
obliterating ritual: the Holy Name, half-spoken,
is lost on the cantor's tongue; their pages barren,
congregations blink, agonized and dumb.
In the turns of his journey
heavy trees he sleeps under
mature into cinder and crumble:
whole orchards join the wind
74
like rising Hocks of ravens.
The rocks go back to water, the water to waste.
And while Isaiah gently hums a sound
to make the guilty country uncondemned,
all men, truthfully desolate and lonely,
as though witnessing a miracle,
behold in beauty the faces of one another.
I 7s
T H E G E N I U S
For you
I will be a ghetto jew
and dance
and put white stockings
on my twisted limbs
and poison wells
across the town
For you
I will be an apostate jew
and tell the Spanish priest
of the blood vow
in the Talmud
and where the bones
of the child are hid
For you
I will be a banker jew
and bring to ruin
a proud old hunting king
and end his line
For you
I will be a Broadway jew
and cry in theatres
for my mother
and sell bargain goods
beneath the counter
For you
I will be a doctor jew
and search
in all the garbage cans
for foreskins
to sew back again
For you
I will be a Dachau jew
and lie down in lime
with twisted limbs
and bloated pain
no mind can understand
I 77
L I N E S F R O M M Y G R A N D F A T H E R ' S
J O U R N A L
I am one of those who could tell every word the pin
went through. Page after page I could imagine the scar
in a thousand crowned letters.
The dancing floor of the pin is bereft of angels. The
Christians no longer want to debate. Jews have forgotten
the best arguments. If I spelled out the Principles of Faith
I would be barking on the moon.
I will never be free from this old tyranny: "I believe
with a perfect faith . . . .
"
Why make trouble? It is better to stutter than sing. Become like the early Moses: dreamless of Pharaoh. Become like Abram:
