Canticle for the Desert Queen
XI
Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free:
For waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness.
Second to worst of the deeds I had purposed before my revival
Took place seated on Salt Sea hills by a Moab encampment;
Here I had traveled a night and a day, by neglecting survival
Needs as my hunger and thirst, but as pangs of the body were rampant,
This was a thing I ignored for the pains in my spirit were crueler;
Staggering stiff in the lower Judea, a land of unplanned graves
Under the sovereign given the desert, the tyrannous ruler
Granting the demons unwarranted amnesty under the sand-waves,
Here was the sallow domain the queen of the desert has power,
Raising her scepter of famine and drought in a manner capricious
Showing no mercy to men in the grasp of the terminal hour:
Only the wizened and wise can endure in a place unpropitious,
Such is my claim, for the worst of the queen of the desert is welcome
Contra the previous days in constructed Paran and its keeper;
Rare was Judea so beautiful often and treacherous seldom,
Having no quarter for merchants nor rain for the sower and reaper
Tilling in journeys or bargaining soil’s compliance,
Even for me, as I humbly bestrode in the latest of summer
Shadowed in autumn before rain pelts Earth thirsting in silence,
Rousing the fruits of the land from beneath dirt’s rhythmical slumber
Such as the dew-fall lifting myself from Gehenna forsaken,
Dew as a figure of speech to refer to a whimsical wonder;
One of the keys in the heavens the Lord has supposed to awaken
Life on the Earth: in His rain, and accompanied always by thunder;
Granting to women a child, who labors for pangs of her mother;
Also the mystery laden in visions portentous of meaning:
Late resurrection of flesh from the grave I myself did discover;
Dew of the heavens and water of womb are a meaningful gleaning
Surely indicative that resurrection consists of hydration,
Either in water or substance unknown for the crop of a man’s soul,
Dew of Hermon or the pool at Siloam contains evocation
Meant to repair the corruption of things in beginnings began whole,
Facing the queen of the desert against her embittered decision
That in the breadth of the earth, dead sovereigns rule for the ages,
Lifeless and barren collections of dry bones left for detrition
Ruling a kingdom as far as the African wilds to Rhages,
Syrian rivers and south to the coasts of the Indian trade-routes;
Barren dominions empires conquer for nominal giants,
Like an Assyrian king accepting a heap of decayed fruits
Offered by suzerain kings as a tribute from trifling clients,
Forms the domain of the queen of the dead, but my queen of the desert
Dwells as a resident alien, not as a sovereign master,
This is the reason for why I have mounted a dutiful effort
Crossing a Salt Sea mountain to gales-great rising and faster,
Hoping for penance in mere opportunity providence fashions,
Strung by the hand of intent and enthroned in my spirit of longing
Having exacted a will of obedience toward the earthliest passions
Quartered in courts by the ghosts of the earth in its parapets, thronging,
Seemingly lacking a recourse for action but simple acceptance;
What is the worst thing thou hast accepted, have done, for thy vices?
After the deed had been done, didst thou mind thy repentance
Rather internalize folly and reason no character-crisis,
Molding thy nature for worse and minding no longer the changes
Brought by transgressions and sinking the sin for a future arousal,
Deeply engraved by an ignorance cast by the man it estranges;
Woe to the wedding of darkness and man, most ruthful espousal —
Consummate creed in the bride’s black chamber unkempt and abandoned —
That I consider myself as a runaway bride, malcontented,
Further insisted by travel to one whom I knew and had stranded
Gives explanation enough for the ardent excursion fomented,
Seeking the lover’s embrace of forgiveness and conscience unclouded
Traveling south in the west for the chance to be met by another,
Queen of the desert, or widow unwed, hair braided and shrouded
Left to the wilds of Zin with no child nor sister nor brother,
Nestled in heritage lands on the claim of a kingdom forgotten,
Brother of Israel gone as a wadi in seasonal motion,
Land she had sold to replace lost wages her husband had brought in,
Queen of the desert deserted indeed in the nuptial ocean
Laden with treasure but lacking in winds to return to antique shore;
Maiden in virtue, betrothed to the dead, and redeemer-desired,
Seeking a favored disposal of heritage only to seek more,
Greater a token of favor, a mother as always aspired;
Older allotments of Israel Moab possessed and relinquished,
Passed to the east by a passage to Kir in a valley unverdured,
Softest of earth and a brightest of airs by a mountain distinguished
Running a shallowest river by way of a crescent it arboured,
This is the palace a queen of the desert had lived and enlivened,
Planting a series of gardens about a distinctive encampment
Large and impressive with sun-dried bricks time rendered as wizened
Under a sun unrelenting but keeping its charming enchantment,
Fit for a family, made for the purpose as such, but unneeded,
Only a widow alone had the pleasure to live in its four walls;
Such is apparent by weathering walls and its fields all unseeded,
During the summer its span as untilled as the dirt of the floor-stalls;
Even the gardens were barren of cultivar freshened for fresh rain,
Ivies were faded of green and the orchards were dull in the same way,
Nothing prepared to be grafted or plucked for the season to thresh grain,
Sad an estate to be left for an ambling scoffer to gainsay,
Coming in view in between the surrounding expanse of a grand vale
Laid the extent of her claim which I recognized forthwith and starkly,
Treasure I might the occasion of going afar from a land hale
Toward the measure of mention, a place of a tarriance darkly,
Symbol of selfish misdeeds, an unspoken defiance of duty,
Might have engendered a shuffle of feet for a hesitant march done,
Only my eyes were aware of the feast to unfold in her beauty
Also I knew of the well I had dug to attend to my parched tongue,
Penance itself is a sweetness but hardly a cause for a hurry,
Thirst and unquenchable blazes by gazes indiscrete were essential;
Lone was my venture in dead-dry lands and I ventured no worry
Once I arrived at the farm-stead company waited suspenseful,
Waiting perhaps in a quashed expectation for other arrivals,
Not of a man but an angel with manifest grace for his giving;
What is a man to have done if the Lord sends such as his rivals
Lest it were not in sufficient largesse to be risen and living,
Bearing away bright heaven in miracles felt but observed not,
Worth explanation and ought to consider a question pursuing,
What is the worthiest man to be counted among the conserved lot
Even conserved from destruction bequeathed for his labor of misdoing,
Since in the seed of a Man is imbued with a faculty heedless,
Every man will insist himself as deserving his place ought,
Only for every man it is known, resurrection is needless,
What is the worth for a sinner revived? I insist it is grace-got;
Worthy to perish, for now as I learned, life ends in a swift stroke,
Struck unpredictably, that in the morning the night is uncertain;
Righteous the man in renewing his life can reenter as shrift-spoke,
Using his day-lights left to repay his transgressions, his burden,
Maybe before I am entered again to the grave I amend all —
Calling my penance my purpose, and thus my obedience credence —
Coming to She’ol again in a day yet to come, I descend tall,
Giving the days I regained, I am silent inquired of grievance,
Hurried but hopeful in spirit I focus my eyes, to descry right,
Gazing upon fair woman, afore I had mentioned her import,
Beautiful both in her face and her form, gown glowing in twilight,
Meeting my gaze by the well and she gathered a look of a grim sort
Holding her jar in aloof hands, puzzled by who was approaching,
Sack-cloth frocked and by measures the Israel desert had worsened,
Lacking an arm and an eye both taken for demon’s reproaching,
Causing her pity until she had placed who I was to her person,
This was of greater alarm as compared to my desp’rate composure;
Setting her jar on the soft earth, leaned on the old well,
Taking a moment for marvel, her tone as a harshest disclosure,
Sorrow I see in the dull of thy cold eyes, witness to cold Hell,
Telling enough of thy journey returning to me to provoke me,
Yet I have nothing to take, so be going, and here I suspired,
Saying, I once had belonged to the bottomless layer, and spoke she,
Such is apparent, and yet I forget not what has transpired,
Terrible things I repeat not, worthy of worthless betrayers,
Off with the one who belongs to the grave! his hospitable refuge,
Thither I cursed to thy fate to the bottom of bottomless layers,
Whence thy origin beckons, the source for all manner of refuse;
Herein she showed her mishearing or otherwise, needing correction,
That I responded so, Zion of God is a city unbuilding,
Leveled to stones in the sand, and she sighed with a knowing abjection,
Something she likely was told, I continued, it is probable here was my killing;
This was enough to be properly heard, and in troubled confusion,
Fragmented truth in my clothing and neck-scar reasoned my presence,
Having been raised from the dead, it is well understood a conclusion:
Something restored mine life, and continues sustaining my essence,
Staying in silence she drew from the well, not lifting her gaze up,
Filling the jar with a slowest demeanor, for minutes until full;
Slowly she lowered the jar in the soil and dipped in a clay cup,
Measured in motion with mind to retrieve it with caution and skillful,
Sloshing no water upon parched earth, drank full all she watered,
Sipping it soundless and slow, and repeating the motion she took more
Careful and quiet and raised it in gesture for passing it onward,
Eager I held it and peered in its shallows, for something to look for,
Shortly before it was poured on my tongue to relieve and be sated,
Drawing my thirst to the fore and my hunger behind it awakened
Thanks to a sort of unconscious acknowledgment torments abated,
Left me in wanting for more as I found to be needfully vacant,
Thirsting for more and in hunger for any I might be afforded;
Surely the widow had noticed but said in remark disappointing:
Sleep in the garden tonight I insist, as my guest I have boarded,
Draw for thyself of the water contained in the vessel adjoining,
Soon I intend to prepare for the evening a meal and a bit more,
Slowly withdrawing, remitting a faraway man she unwell-wished,
Offering mercy enough to preserve one whom was unfit for;
Obvious pity she held for my state with an equal disrelish
Led to her serving but not to her sleeping behind an unlocked door,
Queen of the desert admired, unloved, and forgotten in passing,
Such is the woman I knew as a favorite stranger but not more,
Since man never has known for his heart to have permanence lasting,
Special to bare in his heart but belonging is far from the feeling,
Maybe indeed it suffices to say of a woman her merit,
Even beyond the desires of hearts for the always-appealing,
Might it be sorrowful still to be once called worthy to share it,
That for the man in his delicate moment at most he can muster:
Love is a treasure I know not, still I am grateful to know you,
This to her left and her right is a liar with ignorant bluster,
Love is a treasure I know in your presence and always will hold true,
Choosing the comforting lie to the painful reality reckoned;
Maybe she too can be hardly expected to say of the same thing,
Metaphor made to conceal it unto death, woman is beckoned,
Bearing her progeny love to its fullest for which she is claiming
That she has felt, if at all, for the man she has chosen for father;
What is the heart but misguided, affection but obligation,
Love but arrest, and the passions but suffering ordered to falter,
Weakening flesh to the worst of our vices for cold ruination,
All the above were at once but a fleeting, emotioned encounter,
Rising in sight of the widow I knew in the past but forgotten,
Catching a glimpse of myself in the withering vale I had found her,
Tied to the wine of her eyes, in the soil and fields I had wrought in,
Every place has retained a mysterious presence of Abel,
Long since gone but remaining in what he has left as discarded,
Empty yet purposed as one would expect if he, after preparing a table,
Shortly departed with nobody present to seat or get started,
Leaving it placeless and lacking its reason for ever existing,
Parted from something in this field, eager for tilling and gleaning,
Seems to be gone in a sense as it also continues persisting,
Essence abiding but lacking in something akin to its meaning,
Stampened by settings of suns who have tread on the earth to its terror,
Shown on the face of the widow in constant, exhausted, expression
Similar thus to her fields, and in this I regret to compare her,
Since it was only my own poor judgment I wager the question
Since I have come from Paran and its dunes of tempestuous frothing,
Land of the Fool, the Forsaken, the angels of names incoherent,
Shaded by nothing but mountains and clouds sparse, furtively scoffing,
Even for pity a widow I wronged has entreated with endearment
One who had once wrought wrongs to her self, she returns with her baking:
Cakes of a fine meal coupled with curds on a platter;
Never had such an arrangement evoked such maddening aching,
Being bereft in my hunger, I waited until, with a clatter,
These were reposed on the stones by the manicured lattice beyond haste,
First I acknowledged her genial care for a tenant deficient,
Second I portioned the curds to the cakes to prepare for a longed taste;
Third she responded with candor, if prior expressed insufficient,
Lest I observe on thy head bright petals develop in season,
Such as a daffodil, this I request for a fair compensation:
Tilling my fields has become as a burden for many a reason,
Cover the valley in seed and await for the harvest duration;
Dwell as a daffodil in my garden subsisting, reposing,
Such is thy coming to me, and I pity thy need so apparent,
That of the places to venture, my lands was the one unimposing,
Stark indication of such desperation, a struggler errant,
Cleaves to a one he transgressed in his days past, telling of two things:
First, it is truly a desperate circumstance thou art to welter;
Second, bereft of thy leverage, happy are thee for reprovings;
Given the two things prove to be true, I am welcome for shelter,
Bringing thy meals as a wage, and my garden for work and as dwelling;
Eat of the fruits not, this I will know in an instant by counting,
Neither invited art thou to my home, for no reason compelling,
These are the terms I have given to thee, she concluded recounting;
That it so beams fair, this I agreed to with cadence unchanging,
Thinking in terms of my thirst and my hunger, I offered assurance,
Saying, the time we have left to acquaint, we unmake of the strange thing,
That has befallen us two, and the moment I ceased in endurance,
Ate of the curds and the cakes with a ravenous urge I had held forth,
Leaving the widow to pause so until she departed for evening;
After I sated my hunger and thirst, I was satisfied thenceforth,
That I was satisfied most for contrition I hope in achieving.
a quest for penance • a journey near the Salt Sea
a familiar desert and valley • a lone dwelling
a widow takes pity • till and sleep in the fields