Canticle of the Etrog Thorns
XVII
So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai:
And the king’s wrath ceased.
After a Sabbath of hoary horizon and sodden description
Once I was healed, or as much as I might in the circumstance given,
Out in the valley I bored irrigation for water’s eviction
Working with ardor until the affliction was driven,
Typical rain was unable to flood this valley in the season,
Though it had fallen in greater endowment compared to the years past;
Since I returned, by my hand and my brow I had viable reason
Finding a small vale closed on its sides by escarpment to appear vast,
Larger indeed as it needed a strong hand able for correction,
Given the growth it accumulates after its husband departed,
Needed a culling and scattering seeds for a later collection,
Joined by the colt for the plowing and work for it that I regarded,
Furrowed the march of the land, and I noted a figure approaching,
Distant but visible, south by the flow of the vale at its edges,
Sounding a cry indistinct, and I called — he ceased his encroaching,
Turned and in silence he studied the entrance enclosed by the ledges
Jutting to narrow the rounded defile, and slowly advancing,
Closed great distance in quiet until I observed with precision
Wretched the man who approached, found indigent only by glancing,
Covered in filth, and he might be my brother by shared circumcision,
Such was his beard of astounding degree, by its length to his knock-knees,
Slightly exceeding his clad-rags chalky upon his complexion,
Swarthy but spangled in blemishing sores, like flowering poppies,
Reaching his gaunt head, balding and wont for despairing expression
Fitted with blood-dark trails from his eyes, so accustomed to weeping
That it had stained on his face, as a stone cliff watered by fountain,
Darkening eyes but already so dark from neglect for his sleeping;
Looking in sum as if death had but lost of him under the mountain
Seemed a familiar state to my own resurrected appearance,
Only reprieved from the scars and the blood I had borne and have shared much,
Though I considered our state, I was guarded with instinct inherence,
Fearful he sought alms, bed-rest, trouble by some undeclared touch,
Things I had not in abundance nor int’rest providing to strangers,
Whether or not I obliged for the sake of the Torah and Writings
Mattered as little as charity might not muzzle the dangers
Might he abuse hospitality here and, ignoring my chidings,
Stay to his welcome and further beyond, to regret his admission,
Chances a violent encounter I find disadvantage as current,
Missing an eye and an arm, but I waived my concern opposition:
God will be judge as according to deed for his every servant,
Which was the thought on my mind as he started to speak for the first time,
Thou, he began, and I both are condemned to a fate of a like-kind,
Equally damned by the Name for our share in performing the worst crime,
Cursed to be wanderers always, but specious salvation we might find,
Leaves us in time, but for thee, I was sent with a word for thy profit,
Pausing, I spoke thus, brother of Abraham, son of affliction,
Man has a curious nature; I wonder, of kings and of prophets —
Offered as such with a mind for appeasing him through benediction,
Finishing — where might thou be among this? came his replying,
Mine are the hands to have struck God, sin of all sins and injustice.
Such was my crime, and my curse is to wander, eternally sighing,
Hear of my word with a pittance, believe and determine to trust this,
Death is a grace if thy life was for God, and for some, the undying,
Walk in their sorrow; I measured indignant injustice for God’s face,
This is my reason for weeping forever, and not for untrying,
What can an agony such be enquenched with so infinite heartaches?
Blasphemies, surely, but maybe inculpable due his contrivance;
Nothing to comment but whole disbelief and a warty attention,
Thinking him thus far gone to be worth a rebuke or my violence,
Speaking of God in the flesh, as the nations were apt for invention,
Then he betrayed of his true thoughts, High priests called me their servant,
Malchus, and rightful I wielded a sword in the temple, our birth-right,
Faithfully serving Sanhedrin, my work was impeccably fervent,
Till that night I was sent to arrest of the Name in the Earth-light,
Shadowed in grove on Oliviet, this night smote of my right ear,
Such was His mercy, He healed it with one touch where we had all stood,
Stopping him here, I was ignorant not of the story I might hear,
Speaking the Way, I was angered, rebutting, I hear of thy falsehood,
God, I reflected, cannot be destroyed, as to shew my exhaustion,
Knowing enough of his claimed Messiah to speak with exemption;
Malchus persisted and said, as we both are of graves we’ve forgotten,
Mine is for striking the Name, and so blesst is His Way of redemption,
Death was His life and His grave was no curse, but for one of my station,
Life is my death, and without one grave I, accurs’ed to wander,
Now can proclaim one word, and I weep for myself and my nation,
Knowing the portent — but now, I myself had no portent to ponder,
Hearing the news of his God made flesh so before as the present:
Lest it has yet to occur in thy mind, or if this is unclear yet:
Only the spirits survive, and whoever is deigned to be pleasant,
Speaking for truth, as the raised are the blesst or owe a severe debt,
Not as he says, as a curse! to awake from the grave has its merit,
Malchus persisted, and said this: Crucified! crucified! thou on thy own cross,
Zealot the other, and thou hadst escaped, with life to inherit,
Leaving Baradamah raised in thy place with his life as the lone loss,
Such was the case for the Name, as Barabbas was freed for Azazel,
Also my life, and the thief to His right was absolved for repentance,
One who was slain, but I tread on the Earth: His triumphant appraisal;
Now as I live, I can speak to thy benefit still for thy sentence,
Either repent and believe in the good news, happy to hear it,
Else I will kick up the dust and thy life be unbearable trial,
Thou wilt be faced with calamities soon and, to lack of the Spirit,
Means all the suffering slaked will be wasted and, after a while,
Even Gomorrah and Sodom will earn a reprieve by their hand durst,
Maunding for evil with evil in daftly iniquitous wages,
These the remarkably woeful and thou wilt be judged and will stand cursed
Further below, as the signs come marking the passing of ages,
Dearth are the lost, as the poor will be rich and thy life will become death;
Weary of this grand speech, I, in spite and so filled with my hatred,
Said, will thou please doth the kindness to go? and careered in a one breath,
Slapping the man, and he tumbled, his rags were uplifted and, naked,
Bringing to light red patches of similar size and inspection,
Slathered in watery muck, half caked on the side he had toppled,
Seeming to panic, he rolled on the colt, though not his election,
Startling colt and it splashed more filth on his modesty mottled,
Scurried in mud and in patch-work grass as he struggled for movement
Till he had worked of his rags to reshawl of himself, and he stood up,
Bearing conflicted a smile condemning, but not of reprovement,
Saying, from Adam to us, and from Egypt to Persia to Europe,
None have the sin as thy actions have wrought, and he hovered a moment,
Then he returned, For the citron is thorny for reasons inspired,
Forming the crown of the hard-ship which it emerges component:
Paired with its evil, the good is emboldened, defined and desired,
Walking away, he continued, mud sucking with every cold stride,
This is the truth, for we both are the thorns on the branch of persistence,
Witness until all the world’s tears fall, blood drains and souls died;
Further he trod and so doing he echoed afar in the distance,
Parting with this: as thy hand smote, mine had as well, but we differed;
Both of our hands were a strike on the One who had sent our salvation,
Mine was in service, and anger! but thou wert uncertain and dithered,
Wander I might, but I warn thee now, by divine approbation,
Thou wert already abandoned to suffer in agonies fulsome;
After thy action, no Spirit descends to enable thee better,
Only thy deeds have accepted the Zealot to Abraham’s bosom,
Equally driving thee far to the ends of the Earth to forget her . . .
Fading his voice had returned to the clearing of mountain and country,
Whom was the subject of “her” was unclear but to stones who would listen,
Since he was either a prophet or mad-man, putting it bluntly;
People in general, time had no real obligation to blissen,
Women as such; so if meant for Hadassah in innocent standing,
Israel cantled in metaphor, others supposed or uncertain,
Doubtful I trust in his word, in his crucified cause for remanding,
Whether he knows and may peer past futures concealed in their curtain,
Many have spoken before, as Balaam’s redirected predictions,
Haruspex dramas and brutal procedures for summoning omens
Found in the annals of every nation, their slaughter prescriptions —
Canaanites, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, the Romans —
Each has a cause for the future and here was a man with a vision,
Seeing the past with a personal clarity and, deducing from such fumes,
Things to transpire, for fortunes or woes and with absolute precision,
Knowledge to will and prepare well, known whose toils and what tombs;
What can I owe for a tale I already have heard, or my life spake,
Properly stated, his portents will not have revoked my decisions,
Choices a man has established as just, or for one’s or a wife’s sake,
Strangers have not a dominion having expressed, to concision,
What can arise or will happen regardless, and warrant no letter,
Not a diminutive change in the slightest for fortunate guesses,
Though he can guess as he might, and was right, it had functioned no better,
Whether endowed was a peer in the possible curses or blesses;
Curse all the same, as I finished my work to the melody nat’ral,
Sucking in sockets of mud and the hollowest swish of its dredged pools
Filled with reflections of blue-drop skies as if equally astral,
Ruptured with quakes I delivered in rapid succession with wedged tools
Cutting a path for its movement away from the seed I had laid in,
Mindful of whence I was working, forgetting abrupt the encounter,
Practical labor has qualities such for the men who have trade in,
Many a pressing concern is of salience, plans may enfounder,
More to consider than merely the speech of a sciolist smitten,
Clad in his rags and on journey to disciple laborers honest,
Sweat of the brow unimpeachably true but unwritten —
Much as it tries, education cannot overcome of its promise —
Truth is the hand at its work, or the plow, or the tending as husband,
Not in the promise of princes or foreign philosophies reckoned,
Wander he might in the gloom-stone grimace of chartering upland
Malchus will find in the brood of the desert no knowledge is beckoned,
Trivial word-play madness has nothing in chartless apportion,
Neither the ponderings these I have ventured in passing mention
Under the tear-drop heavens and rent-shaped mountains in torsion
Laying its journeys for travelers harshly and lacking intention,
Filled with the rarity rains of a land most fickle and brooding
Carrying not as the rains of the nations afar irrespective,
Shorn on the spine of the giants at rest, sheer faces protruding
Over the salted and bled sea sunken in heathish perspective,
Water was life, and the rigor of soil was scarce on aglow sand,
Making the copious rains for the season a treasure delightful
Flowing on through this singular pass on its way to the low-land,
More than was needed, the quantities made the munificence spiteful,
Autumn lamenting by dirge for the fall of Jerusalem, weeping;
Once I had heard from a teacher regarding Elijah the prophet
Given the key to the windows of rain by the Lord for his keeping
Letting the drought on the kingdom remain as until he would stop it,
Such was the key in his human possession, by man’s reservation,
Forfeited only by need, for Elijah requested another:
Key to restoring the breath of the dead at his Zerephath basin,
Raising from death son only-begotten to cling to his mother;
This, as the teacher explained, was the second of three we detected:
First was unseen, and the genesis every life had required,
Birth; and the second sustained life, rain; and the last, resurrected;
Even Elijah was worthy of one at the time he desired,
Now as I live, resurrected, the Lord is perhaps interceding,
Handing a key to Hadassah to raise from the dead, and to start rain,
Finally saving the key to conceive for the season succeeding,
Sculpting in flesh this love and providing an end to her heart’s pain
Borne on the wail and the rocking of fists as a child expresses,
What considered as lost, but to equal perspicuous prayer,
Finds good favor in silence, and vigorous silence professes,
Speaking to righteous a faith, so the Lord has His cause to repay her,
Not as exchange but on basis of merit she labors incumbent;
What I accept as the touch of the Lord by His grace for redemption
Having prepared her travails for a purpose, for blessings abundant
Whether Hadassah reflects a rendition of Hannah’s exemption,
Sarah’s fulfillment or Judith’s perfection, no promise is broken
After Jerusalem fell and the Temple by fire was buried,
Seeing as God has allotted His manifold blessings as token
Shared with a childless widow restored to the man she had married
Flowed from her source to myself, and I hope she will suffer no longer,
What I experience every autumn and spring I endeavor
Flourishes love to suffice day’s bread and begin to be stronger,
Manful enough to present to the Lord, at the end of forever,
Deeds and decisions I cast on Hadassah and, much as her name-sake,
Advocates now and on that day with reliable boldness
That I deserve to be counted and seated with glorious day-break,
Rather than banished to darkness and drought and unspeakable coldness,
That I am only a trussle of thorns, I am thorns interwoven
Rising, embracing Hadassah if fruits were the measuring shekel;
Malchus be right in his judgment, if ever we came to be cloven,
Pried she be taken but only by God from the branch I bespeckle,
Labor for thorns I will joyfully render, I work with conviction
Now as I ever will labor, for sufferings coronate lustrous,
God may be pleased to observe of a man to have fared in affliction
Much as He tempers His wrath for His people who warrant their justice,
This will be what the Messiah shall bear on the eve of arrival,
Knowing of agony, knowing our troubles, but not as predicted,
Not as I heard from the likes who equivocate this with revival,
Rather I know the restorer of Israel must be prescripted,
Keeper of brothers, a king and a priest, and invokes of our promise,
God to return to inhabit His country and burn of our off’ring:
Law will instruct us to live, and we live by the words of the prophets,
Letting us tend to the oldest commandment, to multiply offspring,
Then we will prosper for good, as from genesis God had intended,
Covenant-bound and in eagerness faithful to righteous injunction,
Burning away thorns coiled on toil as man is emended,
Starting with penance in one man driven by fruitful compunction,
Far be it that I await! for I labor in thorns for repentance,
Nazirite lacking a temple, and neither presenting as hairless;
Pledged to travail, still not as a punishment, not as a sentence,
Rather as sacrifice, giving it freely as mark of prepar’dness,
Ready to bout brave shoulder to shoulder as Israel called for
Whence the depression of valley, we call it Megiddo, awaiting
Searched in the reeds by the braid of the Salt Sea swayed up the bald shore,
Vantaged from here, I arise in the gasp of its mountainous plaiting
Tresses of bleached rock snaked on the spine of a terrapin basin,
Dark in the day but aglow come night by the daring of star-light,
Crafted from annals preceding itself by celestial mason
Riven a place for Himself to reside — so the world was bipartite,
Much as the king’s throne sanctifies not who is sitting upon it,
Rather the king is the one who will sanctify seats by his bottom —
Thus as our God had arranged for his seat to the singular grommet,
Thus it befits of His people to lev’rage the cooling of autumn
Sewing the soil abundant with penance to reap in perfection,
That the Messiah will gather a cloud for a chariot burning;
This is the day I believe I was fashioned for chance resurrection,
That I will witness the rising Messiah — and glory returning.
draining the vale • a wandering man called Malchus
he speaks of his Messiah • a strike and his curse
considering the keys of life • the hope upon me