Canticle for Dinah’s Vengeance
XXVII
And I will execute great vengeance upon them,
Rebuking them in fury: and they shall know that I am the Lord,
When I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
Rare do I dare to recall the before to Jerusalem burning:
Grief, desperation, brutalities, evils and caterwaul slaught’ring
Children consumed, wives ravished, the cauldrons of carnages churning,
Leading to priests with their long knives carving my throat as an off’ring,
These I abandon as memories scarcely-retrieved and regretful,
Though of a one I oblige to discern, for it seems be repeated
One of the auspices awful as Aaronites made us successful
Thriving among the conditions we faced as supplies were depleted
Living on rations we rationed ourselves as the suffering mothers —
Nay, I cannot speak — shamefully men robbed million-many
Dredging ourselves for our comforts the Lord best never discovers
Lest we be found guilt-glutted and pay to the ultimate penny;
What I had done in Jerusalem, aided by Sadducee allies
Came to my memory twice as I strode on the boulevards teeming:
Once in observing a red bread-cart and its cohort of rabbis
Squeaking their way from outside with no one’s recognition deeming
What was a worthier lot, and in much contemplation of manners
Whether I even deserve to partake in a justice to reckon,
After the turmoil worked out under Italian banners,
After refusing the idols of emperors Roman at beckon —
Finally ending the rote, if perfunctory service to idols —
Once their chaotic successions had four-square failed to be stable
Might the Levitical class be obliged (but secure in their titles)
Something of cheek so the worship of men we no longer enable,
Century past the defilement wrought in the holiest holies,
Sacrilege piled on sacrilege, birds of imperial glory
Fastened by nails to the temple and each of the priestly enrollees,
While the rebels were scarce with regard to their food inventory
Sharing it now from the bowels of haughty Herodian Rome-pomp
Built from the mightiest mount at the edge of the world for supine kings
Now retrofitted for beggars and rebels by a laudable hope’s prompt;
Keen to my sense of Messiah, the priest-king meriting fine things
Chrism’d with Spirit, alas: to comport to the age I am living,
Much have I sacrificed, most of all spirit, the task of the mortal,
Proven by these I have hated who better exhibit in giving
Sharing their goods but to slip past silent by fortress’s portal
Showing me where I am called: not make retribution mine own,
Feeble and earthly, the vengeance of God; so in humbled submission
Dared I to navigate cornering paths to Masada’s consigned throne
Borrowed from Herod’s descendants of bitterly lost recognition
Somewhere opposed from the gate-house, somewhere I know I am carried
Facing the men who have governed my wretched occurrence in distance;
While I pondered my movements to come, I had visibly tarried
Begging attention from many but two grave men of insistence
Greeted me fairly and spoke, Peace, brother! from whence dost thou reckon?
Thus I responded, Ein-Gedi, and both showed skeptical aspect:
Surely thou offerest jest, for thou bearest an alien weapon:
Whence has it come? so I shouldered it tightly with dread for my asset,
David the king, and I earned but a scoff and a laugh from the two men,
Which I responded I came by the still-steep climb up Masada —
Thence I had stopped, for their faces were changed and apparently knew then
Whence I had come; I had spoken with accent of priestly stigmata,
Hellenist-Roman in stressing my syllables, which I neglected
Even with many a time I had heard it pronounced as was proper;
Both of the Zealots assaulted me sharply: my fury was whetted,
One on the hilt of my blade, and the other with feeblest copper
Brandished and ready to strike, so I swung up with forcible flourish
Guiding my maimed arm past to the pommel, diagonal-downward;
Falling in purchase upon him, the other with followup boorish
Lurched for a thrust, but he lapsed one trice, momentarily floundered
Giving enough opportunity thus to bestow interruption:
Placing a bludgeoned surprise, one dead-legged kick center of torso
Stealing his breath, and the other intended his blade’s introduction
Flowering red from his collar, for which I returned with a thorough,
Gratified heave with a grunt and a shove such that he was severed.
Granting me time to withdraw of the sword to expunge of the other,
Plunging it handily, cracking his core by the force I endeavored,
Stealing a sigh from his lips and a pitiful cry for his brother,
Limply collapsing, and suddenly ripped from my fulsome engagement
Came to me pummeling hands from the audience that I obtained here:
Zealots with clubs in the costume of Romans coerced me to pavement
Ripping my weapon Davidic from reach, and as several came near,
Helping their friends, I was lapsing in conscious discernment their voices
Flitting in murmurs: my ears red hot and my temper persuading,
Thus I was breaking and fading, and now reconsider the choices,
Meekly exhibited, leading to this with a bloody upbraiding;
Much as my widow is scarcely revived or returned by my out-rage,
Only presenting me violence deserved in a muffled surrounding
Hemmed on all sides by the shouts and demands of a murderous crowd-cage
Eager-prepared to tear me apart th’n to give an accounting,
Dinah was hardly avenged with the death of rapacious and brute men,
Earning but two of the children of Jacob consterned condemnation,
That in the dolorous oak-fields Jacob, who thought all was doomed then,
Knew as he lived to be loathed and reviled by every nation
What I am feeling in every strike as I, dragged by my hind-limbs,
Floundered and pitif’ly stretched on the spiculate gravel I dragged on
Whilst the shouting became noise; wherefore subject to divine whims,
Punished or offered for sacrifice, felt my extremities half-drawn,
Bound by a razory cord as the movements became with intention,
Not as the flurry of beatings and crowd-mad stripes had presented,
Rather, deliberate pummeling — filled me with dull apprehension
Every time I was flipped or besieged or disrobed or suspended
Till I had come to a halt at a lateral precipice gloomy;
Hearing a shout — Peace! save him for lariats — stop the commotion
Inching me close to a tumble the thugs had intended to threw me,
Shadowed by mountains and steepened by God-wrought windy-erosion
Dangl’ng before me until I was hauled but again on the hot ground
Meant for a torment unseen, the abuses continued in earnest —
Spat on and smote for a stripe, as if knowing my body be not found
These men stronger were merely repaid in my shame for their service
Following through on the update received for a better assignment:
Though I was never considered deserving of also addressing,
Bare intuition sufficed to believe I was shooed to confinement,
Grated upon coarse road as the friction succeeds in undressing,
Garments divided — in current respects, I was doubtful to sure fend
What was already a spoil — and thence the descent into dimness,
Darker and heavier air, all the signs of a soon premature end
Swallowed by earth but again in the dread maw gaping in grimace
Taking me twice to the bottomless layer in twain of the world discs,
Only of now I am bound and unable to think it in sequence,
Battered and hot in the face, rock-grated and treated as worthless
Pulled to a place, some dungeon, ensnared for a lariat-pretense
Which had obscurest of meanings; the passage became claustrophobic
Till we had entered a complex of chambers engraved in plateau-core
Muffled with echoes and trussed, dim-lit by an origin gnomic,
Coral in color, appearing as fright’ning-expressed in the folklore
That it was obvious none had escaped in the time it has stood here
Jutting the land-scape, mesa of might of advantaged formation
Built with the mutual works of our God and a ruler of good ear
Confluenced toward theandric construction and armies’ vexation;
Whereof I fainted and slept in my spirit from transit traumatic
Feeble and limp as my captors, resenting my state catatonic
Navigate sharply the paunch of Masada’s bedeviled schematic
Forged into ocherous dungeon resounding with groaning tectonic,
Otherwise silent; I, swordless and naked and dignity-plundered,
Found but a stone-chilled comfort as captors released me to caged brick,
Slamming the grate and departed, the consequence whereso I blundered
Imminent-present, for once I had caught light-rays by a strange trick
Saw a reflection entangled — a puzzling pseudo-reflection —
Whereof a man, face swollen and lacking discern’ble expression
Also without clothes rolled to his side as I entered detection
Though he had nothing to share, and returned to his quiet depression
Stirring no longer as faraw’y whirling of winds, interspersing,
Softly elated the muffled surroundings; I moved with my one hand
Rummaging over the cell in the gloom, all my senses conversing
Sharing their findings of grit-bricks, dry-draught iron and scum-sand
Dampened and packed down, mortared to grounding impregnable-piled;
Thus I relax with an anxious repose to the sound of their steps-scuff
Drifting to further intension, withdrawn from the captives exiled
Down to the dregs of a dungeon, and though I am certain it gets tough
Waiting in here, as my neighbor examples, I rather be shackled
Than to be beaten to death, lest death be preferred to the lar’ats,
Earlier ref’renced, but what use might I be wracked and bedraggled
Comes to me not, but the thund’ring, a similar rumble to char’ots
Passing above us, and dead-wind air has me duly alerted
That we are not in attendance of merely mundane execution:
Whether to ask? I am sure we are not to be seen extroverted
Locked twain insular white walls threaded in stout constitution,
Stenched by a pallid ammon’a, a sinister dampness abounded
Gristled in bristling lime-stone fissures, the stony diseases:
Pox-like crags as untouched as the slick ground since it was founded,
Not as if thinking of captives was needful of them to appease us,
Which to consider it worthy of warmly infrequent inspection
Seemed to me fitting for care of Masada, and little I trusted
Sitting in filth as I grew still pallid in want of correction
Feeling the pangs of my chest in its every thrum as it thrusted
Forceful and wanting conclusion, and even a violent conclusion,
Rapt by a soon to be greatly-familiar odor — ammonia —
Bidding me welcome to vengeful and relative, captive seclusion
Gnawing us down to our damnable dampness for sores and pneumonia
Poised at the edge of the world in a rank depth stretched subdivided,
Each of its dwellings contained for eventual, fatal accusal,
Whether for crimes unambiguous, whether for fate undecided,
Each of us one to a cell in penumbras of warden’s recusal,
Wherein the days and the nights were as one and the same in reception,
Scarce was a comfort and every dusk made greater incision
Where I had fallen to sleep, for the dark has its worthy deception:
Camouflaged dawn in the held-fast dwindling range to my vision
Kept in a rock-cell, wrought-gate cage from the floor to the ceiling
Only dynamic as far as my ration, a spurious drymeal,
Which was no proof satisfaction, and left me with beggarly feeling —
Silence resounds with the ringing of axel, the grind of the time-wheel,
Thence as I weakened I found in my bones but a hardy division
Thinking a plausible thought: if the silence were ground to a bare nub,
What in its powder can honestly seem to be heaven’s provision?
Mercy and goodness: were these hid down by the hands of a cherub
Sent on behalf of the Lord, and as yeast in the batch of its leaven,
Causes its rise and completion? and also with justice and fairness:
Where in somatic existence conceals us the presence of heaven
Reigning in ever-control but beneath us in routine awareness?
Only in being itself: for no fleshly material keeps it,
Something ethereal flowers its membrane in substance, in power,
Moves energetic’ly blinking and burning and clanging in secret
Which I have fashioned an image my mind constructed: a Tower
Washed by the turbulent waves of a berylline ocean chromatic,
Rooted below in pelagic repose, sand-standing and stable:
Deeply immersed but above it, a tying of motion and static;
What I intended to mean by so strange but fitting a fable,
Pardon the mired indulgence, is simply mechanics of being
Part understood, part not; for the riddle of man as but matter,
Bony and such, and his spirit — of air and invisible seeing —
Makes him as what I am now, I am leaven absorbed into batter,
Hare in a prison, a soul in his flesh — cold-pressed acclimation,
Poured into body and frozen in place for the care of its master,
This is the task of the man, soul: sculpting its manifestation
Lest it be withered to splaying, or sundered as splintering plaster,
Running as watery frost from the flesh, or removed by a slight theft
Bartered for comforts illusory, spurious goods but pretended,
What I had followed to dungeon Masada: how little was light left,
Left to observe good left to decide and be saved and be mended,
Though I be tortured by not what evils my captors inflicted,
Rather, myself: I remember the season behind with my wife wronged,
Both on my own and by these, I suspect, if an image depicted:
Touch of a lost stone, kiss of her warm lips (this all my lifelong),
Garden in spring-time, bed in the winter, the sound of a droll flute
Which of itself is a fiery instrument, spritely and soul-fed,
Burning within as the kindling for willowed regret at the whole root,
Stoking a billowing smoke in my face from the clasps of its coal bed:
Missing the mention of myrtle, confounded by thorns and by palms-fell,
Hearing no longer the fetch of the wind or the bake of the high day,
Neither the synagogue chants in the midst of a Sabbath and psalm swell,
May I be kept here long, I am certain (wherever my time may,
Truly, commit) I endeavor to wish but a moment of quiet
Where my awareness condemns me no longer, but hardly deserving:
Even today my corrupt heart beats for an excess of riot
Seeking no good but the good I considered myself for subserving,
Wretch I remain! for a vengeance has visited justice of mine own,
Breathing its murder, for every breath barbs, twines and departs still:
What has a sand-shade spake from the dead heat; what has the sky shone;
What has my ruby-imbued blood sprung from the crest of its heart-hill;
What has the miller forgot in his dour embrace of his toil;
What has the horse bucked; what has the rose-bush spurned with the thistle;
What has the river distributed; what has the worm for its soil;
What have I done? I anticipate naught but the slumber abyssal
Withering flower of grass but disposed to diminishing power
Knowing no gain in captivity; still I was, practic’ly quaintly,
Searching for tasks, but with nothing to crawl to, no relic to scour,
Death had at last reobtained me, its laughter was echoing faintly
Outside my cage, a reminder I earned as a wage all my trouble
Whether a loss of a wife, or a salting of land, or a maiming —
Knowing no reason why what stout suff’rings I find, I redouble;
Damned by the deeds of my hands, I have found I am worthy of blaming.
Righteous deeds of the Zealots • A vengeful mind’s confusion
Caught by Gentile pronunciation • Dragged to the prison for a lariat
Dungeon of Masada • What have I done?