68

A fan to flame, chasing choking smoke,
wax by bronze, singing at the sword
ringing the fatherless
and the mothers of men.

Given to blood
unchained, yet
rebels hobble in hell,
the puppet above:
an image in imitation
of the human in its straits.

You marched through the wilds:
The earth shook and heaven fell:
The mount itself moved in cadence
Then sat stunned in silence

Listening for the word
shaken from a cloud,
rain to slake the tongue and ear
of the destitute crowd.

And there sat the fishbowl
and in it the fish,
guppies rising to the rim
broadcasting with their tails
that food was near: come
they said, and eat.

Though you've languished
like cracked and hollow
bones in bowls, discarded
in plastic bags that sit

You still have wings unseen to split
an unknown air; experience
has rendered it an image
of the bird reborn: the phoenix,
Say, or the golden dove,
silver as snow in Salmon

Where the kings were scattered
with their grandsons who fought
a civil war: the legitimate
against the neccesary power

Below a power so transcendent
that were the highest hills to leap
they could not catch the attention
subservient to desire, therefore
the instruments and singers led,
echoing damsels with timbrels:
the thunder of twenty thousands,
breaking chains and binding within
the power to truss and slack
the master mastered. The master

of masters has mastered the gift,
has loaded benefits, has conquered death,
bringing us from the seabed to land
that our feet may be dipped
in the blood of our enemies,
and the tongues of our dogs in the same.

These the fountain: the drops, the notes:
the singers that witness the song:

Benjamin, Judah, Zebulun, Naphtali:
rulers, princes, councils wrought,
commanding strength and power
in Jerusalem where kings will bow
and spearmen be scattered:
the bulls that delight in war.

Princes out of Egypt, Ethiopia: Kings
Sing to the horseman whose mount's hoof
Thunders as it strikes, dividing the waters
And making the dry land bubble with springs.


© Dan Goorevitch