Canticle of Strange Fire
XXVI
A lynx watcheth for their cities:
Every one that shall go out thence shall be taken,
Because their transgressions are multiplied,
Their rebellions are strengthened.
Sitting at ease in the gloom-lit passage, attending to late wounds
Earned from escape, I discovered the Zealot I followed unwitnessed
Breathing with magnified effort and clearly expecting no great boons
Come to surprise him concealed in the depth of suspiral of int’rest,
Even preparing for death, but I knew of a better assignment,
Rushing upon him with vigorous menace, procuring a light gasp
Followed by somewhat a scuffle embarked in the sudden excitement,
Till I had grappled his face into rock and aligned in a tight grasp,
Fortune was mine! for he lingered enough for a sedulous capture:
Sweating, congested and sore but victorious, then I requested
Wishing to pay back full all the jackals, and threatened a fracture,
Leaned on his arm with a terrible pressure to show he was bested;
Now it is need to head to the city, I’m hurr’edly moving:
Take me for fellow intrigue to thy place. a suspicious companion,
Brother of Abraham, rebel against Rome! and removing,
Rather withdrawing my grip, I remembered our bout in the canyon
While he leaped back, feigning defense, and became to his senses,
Nodded and answered, I might be of vener’ble voice for thy new cause
Given the scope and perfection of fortress Masada’s defenses,
Thus if thou showest a righteous sincerity toward undue laws
Laden on Israel, through thy assistance, and gestured his bound limb,
Much can be spoken in action and credible motive in this ‘stance;
Satisfied then, I began by unfurling the mantle around him,
Tying it tight, and he held to my shoulder for walking-assistance,
Thence we departed, his guidance from here of invalu’ble measure
Slinking about subterranean passage until it occluded
Where the suspiral is feeding the cistern its watershed treasure,
One of the many deliverers giving its flows unpolluted:
Reaching the cistern, a scarcely-alight vault plastered and spacious,
More of an atrium than I expected; in silent descension
Both of us slipped in the pool with a mind to be unostentatious,
Lest we are found to be tainting the clear of the water’s suspension —
After a brief swim, landing on platform and steps alabaster,
Sogged to the skin from the wet of the bath but unfazed in the errant
Climbed up the stair to the surface, the echoing sloshes on plaster
Resonates loudly, but none were around to observe us apparent
Fatuous though I may seem, that sword weighed down to the bottom
That I could use it for punting across, and to drag it up harshly
Over my back, as a donkey with burden, and leaned on the column
Dredging myself up with slow-paced ardor and outfit in marshy,
Sagging apparel, and such for my new circumstantial acquaintance
Equally foolish, his injury wakened in swim to unstaunched flow;
Once we were gathered, we paused to imbibe at our regular cadence
Cupping a drink from the cistern, so cold it was painful to swallow,
Easing our thirst for the steep climb up Masada’s foundation,
Mighty an incline on day-cooked shale of eclectic proportions:
Out of the spring-fed cellar the light, in unwelcome gradation,
Suddenly pierced to our faces with torque, one-many misfortunes
Since we had nothing for cover on face nor on foot for the sun’s force,
Finding regrettab’ly nothing at hand to preserve us; we brace square,
Shoulder to shoulder with awkward and stalled gait marching in one course,
Matching his led-drag pace to my limbless support, a debased pair
Snaking a climb on the chalk cliffs toward the looming protrusion
Sharpened by sun in midmorning and casting a gaze of presumption
Steaming with ardent defiance at meagerest mortal delusions
Might one figure a hostile invasion along his assumption
Toward the summit plateau, for the climb up to fortress’ location,
Broidered in blazes and sun, is no great tantalizing for visit,
Not on abused feet, least of all these, nor the aches of probation
Following leave of a battle, a penalty somewhat implicit
That if a man is a tourist of blood and has not its vocation
Even his body shall rise to revolt up against him in some shame:
Though we be not quite old, we are scarcely in lithe animation
Bounding up hills as a goat, no; we stagger, our lips with the One Name
Asking for strength and expressing a gratitude fit for our prayer
Whilst I intended to offer my own strange fire pretension
Once I advantaged my way by the barricades, playing betrayer
After we managed together a mutual aid in ascension,
Little he knew my designs on our shared elevation-excursion
Coating our skin sweat-beaded with powder and sediment furring,
Then apprehending a sight of our entry, and there: a subversion,
Finding the gate at the summit replete as a refuge concurring,
Women and children and mangled remains of the men who had fought back,
Standing with shame in the shade of Masada, its looming façade rose:
Whole from the side we approached, each face of its bulwarks a squat black;
Tiered on the opposite side, its precise height only our God knows,
Making Masada accessible only from here on the switch-backs
Tolling the last of our energies toward ascent to the sole gate,
Allies of cogent conven’ence, a pair up among all the biv’uacs
Teeming with tanned refugees we passed with our slow gait
Guiltless and purposeful (though with estranged cause) whilst their formation,
Motley and miser’ble, acred by victims and widows and orphans
Sat in their ashes for mourning a nation, a wasted libation,
Cursing the white-hot tyranny sun for their current misfortunes,
Casting up moans and complaints quite wordless to heaven unshaken
Wherefrom we crept as a sober exception until, at the entry
Stone-faced solid, its edifice case-mate unmistaken,
Mine new travel companion explained to the Sicarii sentry,
Peace; we alone of the brothers encamped at the nape of the valley
Managed escape from the hands of our foes from Ein-Gedi collective,
Thus we returned with our honor to heal and debrief for a rally
Following what it is King Manahem has in store for directive;
Looking us over with blatant suspicion, and even derision,
Equally stony in face as the walls, he replied and for what gain,
Maimed and defeated a pair, am I ought to prefer a decision?
Many displaced by injustice are clamoring bushels of much pain,
Whereas your loss was for naught at the hands of the dross of Ein-Gedi,
Those in the Lord’s reassurance are lacking in life’s fundamentals —
Find Masada with many in need of its harbor already!
What do you think was the motive, referring your company’s kennels
Out from the walls of our shelter? to which he replied, as expected,
Glory is never repaid, and I added, to wit, understanding,
Comes by our blood, so we perish with blood not spilled, but arrested
Rather by pittance, and slain all the more by our brothers’ remanding,
That is of course, to the punitive court of the wilderness gibbet,
Left to its pale heat tyranny, waterless, pitiless, watching;
Which we all tasted in part by its sweltering morning exhibit
Fearsome enough for our clothes to be dried from our washing,
Only replaced by the sweat of our flesh and the salt thereupon wist;
Then my associate reckoned, your work is important
That we return and respect it, indeed if we ought to be honest
Whom is it, that is, for whom do you proffer enforcement
Lest it be meted for brave Sicariim who dispatch to return home?
Begging the question of what it is meant for the perishing many
Pillaging Israel’s children in want of the spirit to burn Rome,
Swiping a talent from Benjamin hoping to pilfer a penny
Siphoned to Caesar; he said in laconics unwelcome and vacant,
Merely our King Menahem, but with fiery eyes I responded
God has a purpose for kings, for their reign in our portion is nascent:
Speaking in spirit — a spirit retreating, a spirit absconding —
Mummers a coward, and taken aback, apoplectic and chastened,
Spoke he with candor, thy tongue is a sword, and to weapons withdrawing
Watchm’n respond with their own swords, brandishing swift his equipment;
Ere we react, he continued but both of your nibbles and gnawing
Begged me a thought for exchange: for your entry, I ask your commitment,
Take to yourselves at the cistern, from whence you had passed on your way up,
Ewers of water withdrawn for the people you see congregated
Sharing with them our possession and pouring their drinks in their clay cup;
This is the task I shall give to deliver you mine acceptation,
Such was a feminine labor, but needful no doubt for the migrants
Thirsting atop sunned-stone in the pitiful shadows provided,
Needful as well for our sake, so we shew our concern and compliance
Answering not but conjointly departing from where he presided
Barreling downward the steep-sloped face with resentful intention
Shouldered together again for the sake of stability managed
Bleeding our sweat and developing hunger along our descension
Till we returned; at the nave of the cistern, a ewer was damaged,
Maybe a casu’lty caused by our raucous, unpoignant departure,
Leaving a pair of contrasting containers in size and convenience,
One with a handle, the other with none, and of course was the larger,
Which was a problem: unless we contrived of a method ingenious,
Halted for good our assignment; a swoop of the wind intermittent,
Flooding the lull momentarily till we had mutu’lly decided:
Multiple jaunts, altogether in tandem, alone was sufficient
Lest we had help, so beginning in earnest the work, unexcited,
Lifting the heavier ewer we lowered it down to the surface,
Breathing in cool but oppressive humidity, almost refreshing,
Skidding as both of us heaved it up nave-high, suited for service
That we could carry it well, but we searched for a proper redressing
Feeling its weight all the more as we labored in many positions
That we conceived of to carry our burden, to cede to vexation:
Nothing we managed could ease our travails in our current conditions
Given, with little alacrity, nothing was worth exploitation
Both of us faced it with timid demeanor, disturbed and despairing,
Whence I disturbed our despairing by sharing my name: it was Abel;
Turning with initial confusion, he recognized what we were sharing,
Muttering Simon and crookedly grinning: the man had his label,
Much as I also possess, and the humor of what we envisioned
Over the course of the next few hours of daunting exertion
Made it so neither was wont to refuse of the task we were commissioned
Since we had nothing to offer but aches and no moil-aversion,
Binding us close from a status of mutual hatred to kindred,
Thence on as strangers no longer: we girded our loins and proceeded
Upward at slower a pace ere this, then both of us, winded,
Halted at regular intervals till our ascent completed;
Given our weaknesses each, I supported him pouring the ewer
Filling the cups of the feeble, my bolstering Simon’s component
Whilst he delivered the cistern, and soon as the hours were fewer,
Only deciding to sorely recuperate strength for a moment
Soon we returned to the cistern below to container-replenish
Aching and starving and weary and filthed by the last of our fetches,
Growing resentful of each with our own individual blemish,
Worse to our clients, we contrary pair of commiserate wretches
Taking our time in appearance, betrayed by a poise unsuggestive:
Battened by prayer along each glome stretch of our fetches,
Twice we refused to relax both, urged by recipients restive
Thirsting for water and thirsting for fleetness and thirsting for quarrel,
Over again in a clime most hostile we stewed in resentment
Only as much as we consciously countenanced, not as immoral,
Rather succumbing to want in the spirit, to broker amendment
Might we relieve at the terminal trip but exhausted on both sides,
Spirit and body, with hot-stone hands clasped fast on the vasehead
Slowing our plod-march down-up skewed ramp-walks the plateau hides
Looking upon God’s rage-great sun as it razes its face red,
Reddening also the slivers of flesh indisposed in our clothing,
Succored but slightly by friendlier gale-whirs like it were speaking,
Soothing with quiet content to dissent flesh’ clamor and loathing;
Garnering four twin-trips, on the last we observed it was leaking,
That is, the ewer, an outcome perhaps from our dropping it plenty,
Serving enough to replenish the migrat’ry mass, as was late said,
Those we were serving, and once we succeeded in pouring it empty
None were remaining to quench, so we boistered and bound for the gatehead,
Where we in dwindling light reignited the last conversation
Sweatier, filthier, wearier still: and prepared us an entry,
That same man, who obliged introduction to those by his station,
Calling us Zealots and brethr’n, and whence we depart from the sentry
Many assembled escorting us further betwixt the partitions
Rugged, with bricks lain wide: the impen’trable prime of defenses;
Sharing a welcome for two of the scarce-few recent admissions
Those who accompanied spoke all at once, overwhelming the senses
Whilst we proceeded, and passing the pot-stone bones of the palace
Sanctioning outside from inside, the sounds of Masada in flurries
Rushed as a gust to my ears, and with sudden abandon all malice,
Envy and vengeance had fled from my heart for detestable worries
Seeing but swaths of my countrym’n’s families suff’ring displacement,
Happier truly within the immures of Masada, we must say
Better than those unentitled to enter by stretch of the pavement
Whereas admitting a brute pair maimed by their perils for just pay
Join the repose of the residents here in deflated contentment
Stolen away in Herodian palace assembled with lucre,
Myriad benefits: bringing me not hate, even resentment,
Rather a pitiful whimpering sigh, a complicitous stupor
Struck with the lively performance, a city in fact with its pure noise,
Voices in pitches for bidding or sale or distress all-surrounding
Mingled with bell-bobs ringing from donkeys or robes for obscure joys
Raised to the heavens a sedulous clamor of echoes resounding
Yielded by women in scarvings and men stole-headed or turbaned
Racing the snug paths sensibly, doors swung fast by their coming;
Masters guiding their beasts or their male slaves equally burdened
Passing the synagogue spilling its lamp-light, canting and humming,
Rudiments foraged and brought for supplying their plentiful store-rooms,
Food was for certain, and herbs for the incense of synagogue service
Which could contain man-drakes if I carried considerate fortúnes
Which I could dose in the cisterns, but something was making me nervous:
Networked and crowded was every path we, traversing, confronted,
Truly gathering reaching across kin-tribes of our nation
Mostly of Judah and Benjamin, shewing of Levites was stunted;
Seeing, alas! it disclosed a (of different kind) confrontation
Posing a choice to me suddenly, that in a halo of dry heat
Maybe I serve the displaced as to serve God better oblation,
Reckoning others beglowed in the alien fire from sky-seat,
Rather than offer up worship in haste so to taste devastation,
Something of fire unauthorized anyhow: what obligation,
What oath binds me to shepherd my kin in the eve of our scourging,
Even the task I assigned Skull-Duggery during temptation,
Must I be keeper of brothers? I recognize now the converging,
That I am prompted to duly renounce doom-driven adventure,
Which, but alas! is uncertainly God and His Spirit’s propulsion,
Issuing either a blessing or woe nonetheless great from my censer —
Poets and high priests shudder to bone with equal compulsion.
finding the escaping Zealot • deception to enter Masada
the watchman refuses • given the task to ferry water for entry
a fortress filled with innocents • doubting a cause for vengeance