Canticle on the Eptarchy
XXXVII
He shall be a wild man:
His hand will be against all men, and all men’s hands against him:
And he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren.
Searching for water, we found it by day’s end; taking hydration,
Thinking it something deserving we took of it something rapacious
Plunging ourselves in the brook; and we praised God, that in creation
Such was our honor to ford of the same grand riverl’nds spacious
That He had visited first to our fathers, and thus with his story,
Eager the rabbi related, Recall from before, in Terah’s mind
Nimr’d was building his own execration, and hardly his glory;
Though he, finding himself all the graceful regret of a rock slide,
Greeted his son and convinced him to better delay his migration
Only by walking along to a place to the north of the same land,
Syrian-bound’ried and dry, it was later Haran’s allocation,
Also along with Terah, and the caravan shifted on gray sand,
Battered by sun and replete with the curse of the earth as they perspired,
Abram in tow with his nephew and servant and father and others,
Where they could half-way meet with their king, which never transpired,
That in the time they were bivouacked, resting among all their brothers,
Babel had scattered with languages blended and burst into pieces,
Nimr’d unthroned and the villainous tribes of the East had descended
Feasting on spoils and slaves, and so when it all finally ceases
Only the message of what was intact from the city upended
Made it to bear on their camp, and Terah with a mourned consternation
Felt it his duty to fortify, keeping his sons in his presence
While he gathered alliances near him to send to his nation,
Going from kingdom to kingdom and each time, greeted with presents,
Flowing with spices and calves and perfumes and domestics abounding,
Wishing entreaty with others to march with his men to the squabble,
Taking it back, but he found soon none of his presents redounding,
That he was lone in his quest to reclaim the imperial model
Babel the Great, so Terah was in love with the city of splendors,
Not for the lucre itself, but the fact it was valued by others:
What things rulers require, and what tasks power engenders,
Force on a man a repugnancy, that to his fatherhood smothers,
Given a man’s obligations conflict, thence never avoided,
Whereas in times past prior to sin it was well in alignment
Now it is fair competition, and this is a factor exploited
Always by evil, reproaching the man from his passions’ confinement
That it can weaken resolve with its petulant darkness obscuring;
Abram was bound to his father a time as is custom and rightful,
Whilst in the region Terah found not he had fortune securing
Fruitful companions for conquest, and thought it good, if delightful,
Taking his kin with him pasturing, moved with migration of kestrels
Southward for winter, accounting for winds all too cold for his pin’ons,
Northward for summer, for famines are ever a symbol ancestral,
That in the days of imperial infants and giants’ domin’ons,
Baking a brick was an act revolution’ry; out from the mire,
Where we are headed, Terah in the desert was no Babylon rebel:
Nay, for Terah he respected the rhythms of cosmos-in-choir
Seeing the stars as a guide, not gods, but a supplement treble
Toward the song of the order of things, and its want of redemption,
Order disheveled as now it is, paying iniquities’ wages,
Wherewith no animal, planet or thought has a lasting exemption,
Passing away; and Terah on his way to the city of Rages
Thought it as well if an empire fell, for in mortal occasion,
Nothing is sure but corruption, and whereas the Lord can replenish,
Not so for man, and Terah so had many a long meditation
Thinking it fruitless to dredge for himself lost kingdoms in blemish,
Where in his heart he was equally suspect of sheepish transgression;
Abram remained in Haran and no longer did God to him discourse,
Mourning him deeply, a man of contemplative want in regression
Owing a duty to fathers and nations alike, who by shear force
Squandered their most just, faithful so-named, it is tragic but worthy
That to be mortal is always to waste gifts, which as Terah saw
Also applied to his own case; thus he arose in the early
Taking his burdens and beasts, felt anger and then, at a loss, awe:
Marveling east at the sight of a sevenfold sun in the distance;
Speckled in majestied lights, it appeared as an oracle partial,
Slightly obscured by the dust from the west, but no doubt in existence;
Quickly Terah dropped down from his colt and disclosed of his parcel
Taking a bundle of ointment he bought for a people nomadic,
Made for resealing a wound, and reposed it on stones of his finding
Laid as a cairn, and he trembled in body in motions sporadic,
Saying, For Heaven to deny me a patriarch’s loosing and binding,
That for my own son, God supersedes me; I now have a vision?
What am I then to do, Lord? for the world is aghast in transgression,
Writhing in death and the only solution is therefore a mission?
God, canst thou hear me in pleading? the Earth in its forward progression
Wants of a Law, one Law, and an empire that can convey it,
This is my wish, it is every prayer I utter with weeping
Over my time, for I know but alone it is God who can save it;
Then as he finished Terah quite suddenly fell into sleeping
Lain on the sand and the gravel beneath; he was filled with a terror
Ever-beyond a description, and saw in his sleep dead men on their porches
Slain by an angel; a golden container, celestial-bearer;
Fearful a king caught live in a field by an army with torches,
Dragging him back to a city of white-washed stuccos and spires;
Oceans of silvery sheen, ice-spotted, and plumbed to profound depth;
Islands afar in the world with an image of serpents on wires;
Then he could hear: It is still new, still new that you have found death,
Children of Adam; beguiling angels have sought an undoing,
Speaking as flattering spirits with wretched deception, but this is accounted:
When it has passed and the pit has b’n filled with the errors accruing
Worked by the hands of humanity, when it has fully amounted,
Seed from the loins of thy son shall fulfill great things of a promise,
Smashing the gates of the black dirt covering corpulent Hades
Gorged on creation, and then all shall know their Creator is honest
When He remarked that never He sought to compel or betray these,
Though it may feel it so done; for the Lord has forever resisted
Tests by His creatures, and creatures the worse to Him try Him be tested,
Wherewith a grand truth reigns: He is not to be thought of, consisted,
Counted as creatures exist, for the Lord is beyond, for He rest-ed
While He works, and the cosmos consists of His doing from leisure,
Which is your Sabbath command: for no problem reliably crops up
That can demand sin, much as a man takes nothing by seizure,
Only as given from God, and his active existence is propped-up,
Wherewith his God is within and beyond as a ground and a limit,
Waters above and below are the darknesses ever-concealing,
Therein the masterful lights all refract as is wont in a spinet,
Curvature-crystals abounding in diff’rent directions revealing,
Though for a time, it is darkened, and soon it shall cease for thy offspring,
After the exodus-shadows depart, thine children are fated,
God has selected thy own son, see! He is pulling the draw-string,
Flashing an arrow with vengeance on those He has chosen and hated,
Even the same men; wherefore Terah, it is nothing to reckon
That thou art here to expire, for God as to Abram has needed,
Erst is detained by thy word, and thou now shalt be slain by no weapon,
Rather a simple and piteous death so thy word is unheeded,
Wherein thy son can return to the work of the Lord as He wishes,
That he defy thee not; and Terah in his tearful exclaiming,
Asked to depart and be able to send him with treasures and kisses,
Knowing the ways of his God by His Word as He now was explaining,
Which to the angel replied, It is this that God has decided,
This is the greatest of gifts I bestow to my chosen — beloved —
Then he, Terah, died there in the wilderness, this coincided,
Partly, with Abram departing him, not as if frigidly-blooded,
Waiting his father to die, but he knew he was bid to vocation
Far to the south, he exhausted his father’s capacities tutal,
Where he was now to begin what namely is not an education:
Towards the virtues, for this is acquired, but liken it broodal,
Virtues are learned, but cannot be disclosed; and as excellence lingers,
Echoes in objects of actions, so also does God in His favored.
Men who reflect Him in generous deeds and his training of fingers,
Practical skill, and especially, once he retires from labors,
Good contemplation of holier things, for a mindful composure
Proves he is not of the world, but of God, and the world in its pleasure
Hardly distracted the righteous from God’s own holiest disclosure,
Brilliant spring, taut shadow on high, so exceeding all measure,
Only the evening compares; and he, Abram, had therewith decided
Off to the south he would travel, and fed he flock and possessions
Ranging from river to coast, but the man to his nephew confided
That as the seasons reduced and the harvests were slim in concessions,
Abram connected the time to his father’s removal in years past
Therein to famines arising, a signal of great tribulations:
Coming to Earth as chastisement, and thus felt growth of his fears vast,
When it confirmed with the subsequent signs and the warring of nations
Found in the Law as its record; concerning the times, to companions
Abram foretold: God by His Spirit shall adumbrate triple a strange act,
Wickedness, justice and crisis: wickedness spurns Him His canons
Knowing Him not; and of justice, a new thing comes to be plain fact,
Where the source of humanity joins with the counsel of heaven;
Crisis, for soon it shall come to the rudiment spirits abounding
Terrible things of damnation; I speak of a sacrificed leaven,
Greater than kings and beyond sight, prior to Babel in founding,
This is the breaking of history; Abram was therewith unburdened,
Seeing the grim appurtenances meant in his prophecy spell doom
Over his kindred whose fates were according to time undetermined
Though it was clear each fell to the revelries’ angels in hell-gloom
Waiting for darkness to burn; and for Abram the ages we now see
Where he was right or delayed, but I know with a certain perception
Where in his epoch, all hist’ry had not as of then to be drowsy,
That we could call these strange days finals is not a deception;
Abram considered his caravan something a remnant in waiting,
When it was clear in a time come still for his nephew’s salvation
Kings he supported were soon for extinction, and thoroughly stating
Spoils were filth in his eyes, he arose for a pious placation
Bringing his tenth to the servant of God Most High from the battle
That he would recognize then great mystery steadily bub’ling,
Foaming the seas of the future; as Isaac was knocked from his saddle
Seeing his bride, as he knew she was worth it in effort redoubling,
Many have bargained their life for a share in a plenteous spoil,
However Abraham wanted a dignity soiled by nothing —
Choosing to enter the battle with wisdom, the tragedy’s foil,
Therewith he triumphed so well it is not well-worth it discussing —
What is of interest, then, is his offering toward a figure
None have recalled since times of his day in the city of Salem:
Not in his lineage, not in his call, but the deed he delivered
Raising the bread and the wine to his God Most High as to hail Him,
Where was he born? who can say? and his rights to administer the myst’ries?
None have confirmed; so his better vocation is absent explaining,
Abram alone was his celebrant; what could obliterate hist’ries
Better than this? for as holy Elijah in lonesome campaigning
Never expounded his origins, even Elijah was bidden
Sometime by God, and Reuel was advanced with a wisdom of discernment
Though he was priest of the Midian tribe, so I ask for the hidden,
What has the Scripture concealed of the great priest’s holy conferment
Heretofore mentioned if Abraham recognized worth in his calling?
South of the cursed lands smote by the Lord in the vengeance for two men
Worshipped at Mamre and served at the cusp of the shadows appalling
Which had befallen him earlier, Abraham seemed all too human
Offering tithes to the high priest, though it is said of his person
That he was twain: as the priest he was one and as king was another,
Even so, others confess he existed before: the assertion,
Wherefore, is that this man was the Word of the Lord undercover,
Even a figure reserved in the wisdom of God by election,
Speaking an oracle meant for the chosen of God, and with due haste
Fled from our histories quickly, and here passed human inspection
Lest we in time could determine his nature and gather his true face;
Thus I require an answer, if this were an angel’s disguising,
Whence has he gone? is he owed to the children of Jacob forever?
Only a time? or perhaps he awaits a creative reprising
When he is sent by the Lord for mysterious, hidden endeavor,
Much as Elijah, the missing anointed; but wherefore the priesthood?
Whence has it gone? it is here, as Elisha anoints no successor,
Ask we the question? to honor? we must; to remain? it at least should,
That Salem was chosen for honor, the Levites no better,
God had selected Himself a unique man, then, for communion,
That in the twilight of Abraham’s call, as his trial was bordered
Planning Akedah and see here: merely a man, but a human
Setting the type for the one burnt offering psychic in torture
That grand heaven recalls all to keep in the spake congregation,
While we even consider the madness, the reticent danger
When we observe good Abraham offer his own generation
Which he believes in by faithfulness righteous, and this, from a stranger,
Struck me as sudden as wind, for I thought of the Word as is spoken,
Then as a message or thought, then thought of the Word in concretion,
Something apparent and seen, felt; clay pots, instruments broken
Over the well came rushed to my mind, and in spinning completion,
Heard I from rabbi: The test of a man is a slow calculation,
Not as a kind of discovery, rather a coming existence
Sparked by the dark incorporeal, being its manifestation,
Even perfection, the wine-dark soul and its fruitful assistance,
Mind, is a combat of great might, will on the side of the mental,
Will on the side of the spirit; ah, will! it retains of its harness,
Sharing it not; it is here we are judged, and the will is ungentle,
Circling wants in its violence and never resisting a largess,
Therein the tragedy man is engendered reveals its deception,
That in the will we cannot be reworked lest this be established,
Over against will, twice; for the spirit is not for reception,
Rather imposing, and thus it is seen in the heart of the ravished,
Cries of the infant, and wants of the virtueless, see it in action
Where in our plans or our judgments we harbor a secrecy sated
Equal to mind and we use it to stymie our mental abstraction,
Even our good, so we love things evil and others related,
Watch as the world spins down in disordered, calamitous rattle,
Wherewhich the Lord in His mercy, reluctant to speak out His sentence
Gives it a chance to reform, and the metaphor used of a battle
Suits it so well, for the fodder of war lays lush for repentance,
Changing a sin into good works, holy from wanton transgression,
Much as the bodies of men from a terrible loss are decaying,
Bloating and spilling their viscera over the fields of egression
Later all feed red soil, their grasses in flowery swaying
Much as the spring has no memory after of autumn or winter,
Life has no such recollection of death, but all death so possesses
Follows from life; and the battle recedes and is planted by vinter,
Trodden by camels and colts, and danced on by lasses in dresses
Leaving no trace of the evils occurred, and so thus with repenting:
Which is a soul’s cultivation — its grounds dart-smote and deserted,
Swallowing souls and equipment, for gardens of Eden — by assenting
Carefully culling the tongue of iniquities carelessly-worded,
Keeping the hands clean; now in the currents of spite’s revolution,
What in the rabbis departing for Babylon see in the broader,
Legalist cares a solution for ages — a lasting solution! —
Sparking the motions of heavenly powers from men who are fodder,
Straining the Law for the sake of the Law, all rabbinic conversing,
Perfect or ill, aims down at the style of lexicon-masking
Where we may flay great dragons for tents on the harvest-rehearsing
Named the Sukkoth, and the Sabbath shall end with a secular tasking,
Making creation with God as His servants and doing His bidding
Covered by angels and finding no cause for retort, for despairing,
Seeing the loveliest image of things come back from their hidding
Under the veil of transgression, the priests-wrought gift of repairing,
Healing the face of the earth, and the springs of the garden re-flowing
Outward to water the world, to renew it from present condition,
Whereby as well this great plan comes to our finitude’s knowing
Finding ourselves in the glass, then, finding the Lord, opposition;
Mirror of mirrors, unknown but in images, like our dispersal
Over the world, and the white of our ancestor, Jacob; his brother
Edom, the red; so with certainty staining the earth for reversal
That He be known as the High and the Low, This-God and the Other;
Found but unseen, and believed but unheard and forgotten to mention:
Know the revealed God, hidden by God — by no means is He hiding —
Breaks all the vessels, the laws, the requirements, ev’ry convention,
That He be sought and unfound, not grasped in our petulant priding
Therewith the folly of angels, no man by his reason’s dissection
Ever encounters the Lord, who is fiery breath; and their head rots
Thinking the circular thoughts of a fruitless and evil reflection
Stripped to the teeth-clean bone, but His fire reopens the dead thoughts
Making us new, with a new name, now we are born with a new face;
Thus if our reason cannot be accounted for setting the mind free,
Wherefore I ask, back when thou hadst also discovered a true faith,
Waking from sleep as if dreaming … so what didst thou leave all behind thee?
Terah’s plan • Terah’s vision
Terah’s death • Abraham ascendant
Melchizedek’s tithe • God of wrath, Lord of mercy