Canticle on the Tetrarchy
XXXIV
But Sem and Japheth put a cloak upon their shoulders,
And going backward, covered the nakedness of their father:
And their faces were turned away,
And they saw not their father’s nakedness.
Buzzing around us was every manner of insect and creature
Hopping or flying or dashing or slipping along with our travel
Toward the still-to-be-seen destination whose pertinent feature,
That by its size blots out the horizon, has yet to unravel,
While we ventured us ten to the refuge of slayers and sages
Over abundantly verdant expanses and deserts of dry wind
Fled us to Babylon twice, on the crest of the marshwater rages;
Wandering planets observed us with guilt and the stars of the sky spinned
While our rabbi engaged in his tale from the ancient, discrete past,
Maybe embellishing, surely, but meant for a story convention
Which I could take for its worth, and I took to my caravan seat last
While the story continued on a family spirit’s redemption:
Brimming with vener’ble wisdom, Terah in the days when the proverb,
Font of parochial knowledge, was naught, and our platitudes common
Came from original thoughts, yea. these were our origins awkward,
Settling inward, and like bee-mothers can rummage in pollen
Might we be witness to these days, gathering nectars from flower
When it was much as a ship on its virginal voyage, and each part
Fades to the backgr’nd in work; so Terah, at the base of the tower
Which we have spoken of briefly, had want for a book or a sea chart
Whereby he, even the emperor might so consult in deciding
What for political ends could he manage in stumbling cab’net
That he could better its fortunes, for cultures and cities colliding
Seemed to attract great strife of an opposite stripe, as a magnet,
Wherein a union divides and a ruler is ruled with derision,
Ruled from below as is said and as feared, so Terah in reflection
Pondered his next move, knowing he ought to allow no revision
Lest he be shaken from duty or caught by his coat in inspection,
Nay, he was careful to even consider his role in the problem,
Both Eleazer and even himself had, by building the tower,
Gathered the stones for their own execution, and people to lob them;
Thus so, the man Eleazer had also arrested the hour,
Spiriting Abram away in the evening to speak of a treaty,
Not as his father permitted: a better arrangement for worship,
Saying, I bid to my master who graciously hastens to meet me
That I can speak with a fluency holy and utterly worth it,
Lest I be sounding a gong to no purpose; I bid for thy favor,
Since I am only allowed by the Lord but a moment to ask thee:
Mayest thou reckon thy master in error and cause him to waver,
Offering filial light, to dissuade from a blasphemy ghastly?
Even so, said Eleazar, I walk in my father’s transgressions,
Not in his guilt, nonetheless his chastisement is mine to disburden,
Which is the task of all children, and Abram replied, And his aggressions?
What hast thou done to discourage, my servant? to make him uncertain?
This is thy father, the foremost of masters, and whom can compare him?
Which Eleazar answered, I prayed to our God for forgiveness,
That we may never approach but the feet of the ser’phim and cher’bim
Treading the sky underfoot, and the skies as my ultimate witness,
May I be sentenced to stoning if one stone laid could be blamed me;
Now as thou seest it fit, we together may end the blaspheming
Might we conspire to quietly change their trajection? but, shamef’ly,
Nimr’d considered with sorrow the message conveyed by his dreaming
After the first and the second and hardened his heart to the right thing
While he watched from his balcony lattice the city in motion
Thinking the turbulence wrought and on what days subsequent might bring
Much as the fountains all flow to the rivers and rivers, the ocean,
None can escape God’s Word, fate; what he could, through contemplation,
Worthlessly grasp at was only the fact of an empire’s being,
Not as we know how the Lord has so governed the influx of nations
That they were slowly becoming confused, and the crowds he was seeing
Each had agendas and loyalties far from the tower’s construction,
Whether it wealth or political furtherance, goodness or evil,
What he had done in inviting the nations — by Abram’s deduction,
Lot’s indiscriminate prejudice, sight of Terah — was upheaval;
What the imperial court had inflicted was nothing but wicked,
Both for the natives and traveling worksm’n who both were its victims,
Though for the latter, its different scale if compared was insipid
Since for the former the loss of a home and familiar systems
Made it so much more tragic, but this is the story of Babel,
Not of ourselves! as the father of Abram returned to his allies,
Found him the truth of the matter: an equally swiveling rabble
Straining the halls of the king, and the following wisdom of rabbis:
Take great care in relating with governors; none do they call friends
Save if it servers their advantage, and when it is past and the stress comes,
Then the alliance is gone; as the day sun dims, as the fall ends,
Thus is the way of the man, for the crown as it rests on the blesst ones
Sooner departs than remains, and the emperor felt trepidation
Over his splintering court, and his son whom he slightly suspected
Having allegiances beyond him; subject to a slow degradation,
Those who had favored the project were many, as many expected,
Though but a few were agreed in their methods to wage its completion,
Arguing therefore on styles of bricks and on miles of marble,
Sources for water and sources for bronze, and concerns of depletion,
Noticing not one moment their tongues were beginning to garble,
Reckoning past each other, until in the court of empire
Every man was a foreigner, talking in language barbaric
Making the crowd but a gibbering noise and in practice, a liar,
Rendered unable to speak truth; Nimr’d was seeking a cleric
Fit for the duties of what he imagined a unity project
While the riot ensued in his own court, which on returning
Nimr’d dispelled and realized, by achieving their actual object
Building the ziggurat, made for communion and sacrifice-burning,
What they were doing encouraged their new world-city’s dispersion:
Rather than gathering nations in common and reverent fear’s eyes,
Even preparing for war on the wandering stars by incursion,
What they had built was a beacon of men, so once it was realized,
Then it was feared as itself, for attracting the world to its riches
Might be the empire’s version of maidens alone and distracted;
Soon it was seen, in the crowds and the violence and subsequent stitches,
Felt in the babbling hordes and the awful diseases contracted
What was admitted by way of the gates to an empire’s bounty,
Better preserved by the empire’s arrows and industry’s pistons
Grinding away in support, but can weak man manage a county,
Much less kingdoms, with multitudes, famines, consider’ble distance,
Which Eleazar had feared for his father, who hastened to worry
That all his dreams were commencing, for eyes from afar were awaiting
High from the mountains to thieve and to plunder the land in a hurry,
Taking the captives and filling their bellies beyond any sating;
Empires thus were amassing a treasure for savage intruders
That are so drawn to the ziggurat there as a flag they were hoisting
Which was no fortress to heaven but merely a beacon for looters —
What an ironic calamity! what a damnation, His foisting! —
Wherefore the emperor’s son intervened for a master and father,
Plucking the thorns of the master to work on his father’s escaping
Lest by the time it is summer, of weather protracted and hotter,
When it is known for the labor to flaunt work, what will be shaping
Then by the rise of the Scorpion, labor shall halt and the plenties
Opened in charity each shall be robbed by the turbulent masses
Streaming from every people; and thus in a bid to prevent these,
Wise Eleazar had gone to Asshur by its rivery grasses
Seeking the wiser-yet Abram who hastened dissent from blaspheming
Over against the construction at Babel, and risible court men
Grew discontent; and for Lot who could not make eloquent scheming
Thought he could captivate women, but these were a miser’ble sort then,
Far from the cleverer masters of husbands or empresses even,
Those we may know as a judge or a helper in war were diminished
Back in the day Rephaim were about, to their men they were cleaven
Seeking protection, so Lot was original; once he was finished
Some of the women, incensed, were conflicted and bitter-demanding
Toward their husbands, by better cognition of holier senses
Not so dissuaded by reason corrupt or a fell understanding
Which so provisions a false, dull peace that turmoil wrenches,
Which was effaced by their journeys to home, and so Lot by induction
Crafted a tactic he tried in the towns of the plain so m’ch later,
Not as the evil would call it, confusion; the vulgar, seduction;
Rather he knew if a woman was holy, no man could debate her,
Life was her testament; see, if man is a soul, should a woman
Even exceed him in piety, this is akin to a demon,
Fallen from heaven, cannot induce him to worship the wooden,
Blind and obscene things made by the hands, and so terrified even,
Meeting the righteous he sees but his feet, for the man has his top part
Soaring to heaven, and demons have air for their bodies, so built thus,
Up-side down, they perceive him with spiteful derision, a rock-heart,
Eager to tempt and to kill, and so witnessing woman as witness
Ruins the rebel celestials moreso, the rare demonstration,
Much as the man who is envious therewith of women in prayer,
Even refusing the riot of Babylon’s great indignation
Fills him with wicked contempt and a wordlessness, naught but to say her
Only dismissal, her glory; digression aside, by his speaking
Lot had converted the women the empire such had depended
Till they were agents of God; the suspicion the court had was sneaking
That it had lost good will in the people, but none had repented
Even assured to their loss and their ever expanding confusion —
Folly is forced when among one’s rank, to repeat you the adage —
Each of the men had no favor to not entertain the delusion
While they worked on the tower, in fearing the tribes of the savage
Watching from mountain cantonments, impregnable castles forbidding
Tribal-infested and warned to the emperor’s oracles fearful
Which are a nocked bone arrow, an evil beyond any ridding
Perched on a feather of wind, and to try to negotiate tearful —
What can be said to the troglodytes, bred to be bandits and pillage,
Taking by force the Divine’s works? what are the prophets impugning
Other than those who destroy men’s lives, raze every village
Whether by force or the functions of earthy designs unassuming? —
This was excuse for the host of their sins, but we know for the better
Even the hands of the killer can work out God’s meditations,
Even the slaughter of innocents, what we by righteousness fetter,
Might be of use in the cosmic design by our God’s resignations,
Thus for the pagans the spurious tribes in the mountains bescheming
Needed a civilized schemer in cities to face and be laid low,
Though it was curious, none of the men in their speech had their meaning
Well-understood, and as trifling flames, as a frozen tornado,
Even agreement was chaos, and once it was clear it was whetted
Chaos expanded, and sooner than sun had the tribes, from their burrows,
Journeyed and spread in the empire, bringing along all their fetid,
Wretched and fat-heart wants, and the innocents fled from their furrows
Bringing no plow-share. neither a sword, in their absolute terror
While their masters were bickering over the four constellations,
Where they could find those prophets opposing them, which was the fairer:
White alabaster or black lime; these were a man’s machinations,
Which as I said was becoming cantankerous, nox’ous debating
Over a ziggurat doomed to destruction, and worshipping wherefore,
Once it was clear to the king his buffoons was beyond any sating
That he conferred with the stars, a decision he knew to prepare for
Washing himself in the River and burning a sacrifice living,
Then he returned to request from the heavens, the same he invaded,
Even unwittingly; wisdom he asked for, for wisdom is giving
Always, from wandering stars, the celestial dark they pervaded
Images vacant of heavenly mysteries, like the abandon
Felt in the heart’s resignation in face of primordial slumber,
What was beseeched for the purpose of crossing the canyon
Set at the founding of land from the seas, for as centuries lumber
Also the errors of men, and the court was abandoned to idols
Pressed into shape by the hands of their servants and carefully molded,
Carrying spirits, as said, in the tunes of the moons and the tidals
Holding their scepters for show, and their weaponry, delicate-folded,
Never could shed blood — silently then I departed to my dreaming,
Only awakening to quiet; the rabbi had stopped and was staring
Somewhere afar on the night-dimmed line of horizon in gleaming,
Vinnifered haze, and I, rising from sleep, was impossibly faring
Thinking of Zion and what we had left in the dust of the wagon
Traveling East, as if exiled out of the garden redounding,
Passing by rivers and deserts, and seeing his countenance sadden,
Maybe as well dreamed Zion, the rabbi continued recounting
Seemingly now to myself all alone: in the bosom of cities,
Empires nursed, and the bosom of farm-lands, cities so likewise;
Farm-lands till of the soil for ran, these heavenly pities
Wash on the plains into rivers and dens so an empire might rise,
This is the reason the Lord called rain but a key of the living,
Like resurrection and childb’rth, even the city its rivet
Since it is built from the baking of bricks, so the Lord in His giving
Raises the nations to empires, though in His wisdom to give it,
God is obliged naught, just as the world is on God His dependent,
Each of us carry our souls on our bodies, and Abram’s beginning
Thence we are traveling now was to honor his soul, to defend it,
That is the only politic’ly steeped war worthy of winning,
Abram and Lot, Eleazar as well; but Terah was mistaken,
This was unclear at the time, and in tales we can make it a moral
Obvious, free and designed, but the service is heaven-forsaken
When we determine the right from the sin with no anguish or quarrel,
This was my goal for thy eyes, to observe it in realer depiction,
That we can answer, together, the question of hearing divine Word:
How does it sound? how can mere man recognize God’s benediction?
This I imagine thou felt in thy bones, and redounded to thine sword,
Whet on the blood of thy c’ntrym’n, though I dispute it strongly
That it is worthy to call such men mine brethren, in wear’some,
Dry eyes, what I replied was little, and whether I answered him wrongly
Matters me not, for his eyes were the same predilection of fearsome,
Towering angels, and then I began to observe my surroundings
Dissipate low into fog, and I knew I was tracing an old path
Trodden by others who sinned, and if not by my envy’s discountings
These were all men of superior stature who avoided no cold wrath
Wrought on humanity, dying before me and living before me,
Walking before me on these white roads with an attitude leary
Eyeing the same stones locked into place, and the wilderness thorny
Goaded their passage as well, and a fool I am now to be weary
Beckoned at once to an exile east, to recover the westw’rd,
One who has shared with me kindness, the tragedy hope had induced me
When we are cast out, that in me memory prospered, or festered,
Shifting the wings of my will from the want of the sensuous fruit-tree.
eastward still • changing alliances
new strategies • falling asleep
the rabbi talks to me alone • what is being sought