Canticle of the Palm Branch
XVIII
And that thy handmaid hath never rejoiced, since I was brought hither unto this day,
But in thee, O Lord, the God of Abraham. O God, who art mighty above all,
Hear the voice of them, that have no other hope, and deliver us from the hand of the wicked.
Fostering lasting a peace with myself was a task I attended,
One I expected to linger but sooner facilitate some ease,
Now I discover it dries and is worth well sooner suspended
Than to be battling things in the doldrum of quiet and thrum-breeze;
Careless, inchoate it rose in the tentative place of my battle,
Loosening palm fronds over my head with arrest disputatious
Snapping the stem on occasion and tumbling down with a rattle,
Barren volutes at its capital, dates plucked rather rapacious,
Leaving at precipice winter the sign of the end of a husked age
Turned to its neighboring season in some of the usual faces,
Not in the blazed sea holly or tractable vetch, or the dusked sage —
Vermouth demeanors, unstricken by time in their flourishing places —
Here I was much the perennial to date palms, languished in old dreams
Seething with wrath in presuming tranquility seated on grass pale,
Idle upon this grass with my eye on the running of cold streams
Hugging the vacant descent of a hill overlooking a glass vale,
Partly encircled by white ring radials cusping and ragged,
Anchoring soft salt floes to the edges as striping its surface
Fashioning snowy and slim raised islets, contrasting the jagged,
Each the embankments and slopes as without path, pity or purpose
Noted by derelict flora unfoliaged, seeming abandoned,
Like it was made but to show of the desolate face of a shore bleak
Passing from view on the outerest reach of the ruinous canyon,
Hiding its springs in its clefts and its people with every shorn peak,
These were the sprigs of a lost tribe Israel foundered embittered
Quartered in parapets looking on this unproductive pelagic,
One of the three sects known in Judea, the lowest considered,
This was the far-most radical, seeing our hist’ry as tragic,
Then by forsaking Judea in earnest, retreat and explaining:
Spurned is the way of the synagogue-teachers as wholly pathetic,
Also the Zadok-descended, the priests illicitly reigning;
Forming a network community scattered and living ascetic,
Men of a pious position were daily awash in repentance,
Waiting on both a redeemer and teacher of righteousness living,
Shedding their anger and carnal desires so once in attendance,
This good teacher be gladdened in company suited for giving
Robes of the priests and the crown of rebuke to the foreign invasion,
Sharing the bread of the covenant made with the priest who was king too:
First was Melchizedek, last will be one of Judean persuasion;
These were the Essenes whose practice and ardent philosophies ring true,
Whether convinced to be joined to their cause is a diff’rent decision,
Though I have heard of their families not of a celibate choosing,
Dwelling in hovels in holes by the Salt Sea makes, I envision,
Wives of unhappiest temper’ment, finding it not so bemusing,
Though of the Essenes I wonder about not, hate is my focus,
Placed on the smoke I had spied on ascending the valley’s enclosing,
Ribbons of gray-tuft ghosts on ascent from its proximal locus,
Close if compared to my vantage, the site of my work and reposing,
Signaling armies unseen, for by nature if this had been kindled
Might I have seen from my view one traveler flee the occasion,
Rather I located movement upon it and then it had dwindled,
Nothing disturbed from the blotch on the land but a darker persuasion,
This was perhaps those Roman patrols in pursuit neverending,
Chasing a man who was chosen a grave but was buried the wrong way;
Now the pernicious, unstoppable bull of the West was impending,
Messengers sent by the Angel of Death: none rise for a long stay;
Now I had nothing to gain but tremendous a loss if discovered,
Weakly sequestered and bothering not one flickering flax wick,
Worth not such a distinction for casualties weary and suffered,
Sins of the king, as I stated before, is the agony classic:
Battle befalls whole nations and not one man who had caused it,
Wages obliged for the errors of men paid widows and orphans;
Now was my turn to accept the return for a rebel’s deposit,
Spear, shaft, arrow and flame as the portion of terrible portions
Lest as I live I defend with a courage befitting a grown man,
Though I may die and am not so a fool to the hearts of the men come,
What be in store for my wife is no measure to mete by unknown span,
Thus I, indignant, decided on fleeing with fi’ry momentum,
That in the hills I am safe by degree as the Essenes be warded,
Though it be not much longer before we, discovered, are victim,
Now I had hours to spare as I plotted the needs we afforded,
Rising forbearingly, like I acquitted by heavenly dictum,
Not so aroused to be frightened but keen not toward disgracing,
Victims be plenty around but from other abodes it be lifted,
Not for my purpose, to gain from the grave to a grave re-embracing
Neither to see of my wife for a cup so uncouth and insipid,
Further my road be upon, so without fore-knowledge, without chart
Guiding my steps on the splayed dirt that all my treading will pummel,
That I am sure, and I fear one thing, to be reckoned with stout heart;
Offering peace to oneself is a trial of tears to be humble,
Turning to see the familiar world with renewal of wonder,
Counting my whole life not by its years or its days but its minutes,
Making expressions for gratitude, sharing contritions for blunder —
Knowing a thing is to know of its shape, or its bound’ries or limits —
Falling and falling again is a process so easy and simple,
Infinite angles to tumble or fall down short from my center;
Weaving a course and remaining upright, to employ of a symbol,
Needs good balance, and makes for a highly engaging adventure . . .
Now was the time for decision, to choose and be bound to my choices,
Wondering not of the stakes, for I see such stakes in the stubble
Strewn in the plains to the north-west, flushed with inaudible voices
Sharing regrets for their own in the face of unknowable trouble,
That is the saddest affair with the future, it welcomes desires,
Every rational choice will receive palms laid on arrival,
Only to later redound once prelude or pity expires,
Cold and expressionless judgment without word toward survival,
Laboring axe of the future to past’s long-fated arraignment,
Neither a claim to penultimate justice nor poetry tragic,
Merely the passage of tides and, directed in course for their attainment,
Passively run by the Word of the Lord by a curious magic
Equally furious, foreign and fixed and no clearer or nearer,
This is the crime of the intellect, not of the will: introspection —
Dim but to self, and to self it is searching in lusterless mirror
Likened unto some alien face we observe with rejection —
Truth we will tend to be partial with strangers, with few in exemption,
Though our possessions in men, we protect our propitious desires,
Speaking to those of affection with sugary lies with intention —
Liars to them, and so too, for ourselves, most damnable liars;
Thus I departed with colt with no word to my wife of the ruin
Saddled ostensibly needing supplies, on the breast of a hard wind
Vying for rapid a journey, I strained pace toward conclusion,
Knowing if this were successful I might be deserved to be pardoned
Leaving a woman alone to a possible army defenseless,
Though I assured of myself by the stone of the valley befouled
None in the few days gone be aware of it only by senses,
Watered and rank, stiff-sheltered from weathervane breath in a howl,
Rather, the threat I concerned with was those who had priorly roamed here,
Bandits or tepid deserters with nothing to lose and were routed
Moving along in the hills to escape and discover my home dear,
Taking as pleased and destroying the remnants if remnants were flouted,
Though as I saw these men on the plains were of organized movement,
Time was of import, so still disregarding as these were commanded —
Lest I had labored for others to take for their wicked amusement —
Saddled I went on the colt, and whose hide rain rendered so rancid,
Plodding defeatedly foot-falls scraping on desiccate-gravel
Dry as if not once touched by the rain, and I, cautious a rider,
Crested a rise on the valley so slow-soft, quietly traveled
Seeing again swept desert and mesas as vistas were wider,
Giving assurance in silence, as neither a sign of the Romans
Cast as a speck on the pale-pot land for my eyes to defer to
Meant all the same for myself, and I dealt not tender with omens
Signaled by black-lush clouds on the back of the heavenly virtue,
Trudging to both warned rain and the threat of descent into evening;
Though by my eye I had recognized Roman — no children of Seth’s spark —
North of the valley I lived as had warranted worthy my leaving,
Maybe as easily those seen there were of populace death-marked,
Roving marauders of Israel, bandits — the worthless opponent!
Traitors to tribe and are dwelling in treacherous mountains who stabs sky
Taking advantage of chaos, and nothing by reason condones it,
Hatred would burn in my soul for their hands on my stacking of slabs high
Where I had pounded the soil to firmness and laid it in thick sod,
Covered in ivies and pooled rain trickling wayward, unfocused,
Far from a ruin already, but fair to determine it slipshod,
Masterful work nonetheless in respect to my maimed diagnosis,
Scorched-run clay from the kiln I had labored for months to assemble
Lifted a figure of home from the reckoning made of the miles,
Mile upon flat mile from kindled Jerusalem temple —
What I can boast as for mine is I never have filled it with idols,
Either be cut to the ruin by God as to sate uncontrolled rage —
Far from Jerusalem fane inspiration in time and in placement
Clay-kiln children, the blocks of foundations matured to an old age
Laid with a destitute caution, invisible now as the pavement
Turning the pieces to place, and a place nonetheless to respire,
Rival, perhaps not, though some shadow of garden Chaldean
Finely adorned in its wood beams, dressed in an ivy attire;
Must I depart on a Sabbath as though I were some Maccabean
Fighting for tribe and for temple? but this to be sure is the best way,
Knowing my God, in His infinite mercy allotted so gracious,
Making the day of His rest for the man, not man for his rest day,
Frequently giving the Sabbath so man, by commandment sagacious
Passing with reticent, dimming condition he drifts to his harbor;
Here is my sea-smoked harbor, a species of covenant grinless
Made with the land and the ficklest skies who are charged with its arbor,
More has its glade the rotund and its bodies of water the rimless
Trammeled by fixtures of earth-bones caving, a color of copper,
Far from perfection but this is my own by the heavens as witness;
This is precisely the problem, to gain of a thing as is proper
Worsens its value in man’s eye — better if man were as witless —
Such as a man he has longings to choose from the women a mother,
Fit for his progeny, once his select be sufficiently conquered,
Forth he will venture to seek the erotic embrace of another,
Yearning for what he has not and rejecting the one he has honored;
Whether his intellect darkens with lust or his will is the weaker,
Man at his greatest has managed a dreadful repeat of the blunder,
Maybe reflecting an instinct to dominate, maybe it’s deeper:
Wanting to own of the world and to hold it enslaved as his plunder,
Woe! for the things he possesses he learns to consider repugnant,
Women and land and himself; and until he, and every star, dies,
Waste to the world, so destructive his will and capricious his judgment
Nothing survives in the strange, cold sight of his hollow and dark eyes,
Differing God from creation, who finds no possession indebted,
Loving it more as it grows as His own, nevermind if it’s useful,
Leaving it sorrowf’lly when it departs, with its making regretted —
God is the lover of lovers — but might I be partially truthful,
That in a rainless environment, there is our nation: superlative desp’rate,
Showing us love from His mountain, His true and His proper perspective
Here He has chosen His people, His home, here founded His respite!
Maybe with Abraham, also He speaks to His loving objective,
Love can be love if it only exists with a reckless abandon:
Passion, o passion, as tragic and flagrant as marvelous fire,
Every love has the styles of God, for the Lord has His hand in,
What I can strive for in trial, by trembling brow I perspire
Shrinking away not, might I withstand periodic a trial
Crossing a drift in the sinister flats of a mountainous, broad deep
Smothered in brine-coarse sand in the shape of a zephyr in spiral,
Forged by the hollow and sharp wind, flesh of an air disembodied;
Now I reflect in a manner I humbly admit is redundant:
Man is the same, we are statues of God from a garden of ancient,
Image of better Creator who has breathed in us vapor reluctant
Stealing away if it finds opportunity, though our attainment,
Holding it only a moment, and not altogether unpleasant
That we return to the world breath over again on our journey,
Folded in creases of wilderness wind, of a kind acquiescent,
Buffeting not as a strike but in hissing and nudging me sternly,
Raking the gravel and swimming about in the ridges almighty
Fencing the pock-marked flesh of the desert, its consonant blister,
Walls to delineate wastes from the floral expanses untidy
Blooming by springs, those pockets of God intertwined with His whisper,
Far from my sight now having to lead on a colt as if drunken
Wavering in either direction, impetuous, fading in white heat
Lifting its legs from its hard foot-falls in the passionless sunken
Only a rival in aching to mine gone shod for my dried feet,
Pared by the instance of lifted-in-air sand whipping and hissing
Battering heaps on the face of the ridges in natural construct,
Met at the mouth of the mountain with lips at its peak in arrangement for kissing,
Sharing itself with the desert; so delicate, tender in conduct,
When I emerged on my donkey, its tack and its burdens had bobbed ’round
Shaking with something of strain and a caution to manage its trussel,
Peeking from heaven was night, and its herald was a painfully odd sound
Clamorous, far, undescript, a peculiar, thundering rustle —
Here I will plead, to forgive if my words may appear too abstracted,
What I intend is to merely communicate what is essential,
Bending the falsities skillfully, such that truth be refracted,
Though to be here and experience this, I am still deferential,
Nothing compares to the texture of being in time and in correct place,
Seeing the burning of day for thyself, but removed from perception,
Maybe my language can render it real, that hard-to-detect grace
Shared to the senses and gifted from moment to moment reception
What I was privy by nearness of sight on the draw of the drear eve
Lit by celestial fixtures at night, as we call constellations
Circling round on the circuitous wheel of a heaven unwearied,
Melding with earthly sensations, a series of troubled vibrations
Closer inspection confirmed were a kind of event as it, roaring,
Drew in the faded descent of the dark to the seat of a lit lamp,
Centrally fixed as the point illumined for its party’s adoring
Casting the light and the shade for the men who had chose to commit camp,
Though at the distance I stood, it was greater a distance to reckon
Whether the camp was a bivouacked army or merchant in travel,
Gently I stroked my concealed blade, might I be needing a weapon
Till it became quite obvious that I was witnessing battle,
There at the south Kir-Hareseth walls was it partly surrounded
Ever-remote lights signified flames as the party besieged it,
Shadowy lines I assumed were battalions, sev’ral I counted —
Wherefore the Romans attacked this far out, might I believe it?
Suddenly then it was clear, these merry marauders were local;
Turning the colt right back, I avoided a second to dally
Clattering once more, might I be hopelessly trammeled immobile
Lest I arrive in advance of the Zealots and fight for my valley.
high on a vantage • seeing a marauding army
going for supplies in haste • riding the colt to Kir-Hareseth
finding it besieged by bandits • a terrible mistake to correct