Apples from Shinar: A Book of Poems

THE PRIEST EKRANATH

THE PRIEST EKRAN ATH I who am sanctifiedRaving lain with the holy harlots at Askelon On the roof of the great temple under her visage Who graces with splendor the night in the god-filled sky: Mother, rich-wombed mistress, whose thighs are forever Rising and falling like the tides in the roadstead of Gath, To strike with fear the arid and impotent damned And assure the fruit of field and man and animal With Adonis and her chosen, fortunate priestsMust tell you of these barbarians from the mountains, From the anarchic hills come to destroy us, Recent siftings out of the east and south. They call her the White One or the White Lady But do not worship her nor any mother-goddess. I have seen them on the high days in Askelon When the harlots dance naked through the gala streets For the joy of Adonis and the blessed thirst of the loins Turn away angry, cursing these holy bodies, Crying, "Let them be stoned and their evil wombs ripped up." They hate delight. They have but a lone god And he is their enemy. I met a certain one: Sly as a jackal yet arrogant as a lion, Rough-bearded, out of the desert, desperate With his private phantoms, his eyes like an animal's (Fearful, and darting here and there, yet ready To spring and rend), his hair and garments filthy With the rot of caves, his skin flayed red by scorpions. Though his nights are writhings of fire, he will not clasp The salvation of sweet flesh, but for sustenance [~O] Communes with this impossible imageless demon, Stuff of a barren race, who has tainted him With a sickness I cannot fathom, an evil spirit Like the guilt which dogs a murderer. So always He looks behind him, before, and within himself, And the voice he hears becomes this maniacal thundering On our sunlit streets and before our gleaming temples. What I saw in the eyes of this vagrant (one of a tribe Cultureless, without iron, art, or altar) Was the whole world made somber, and man lonely In a proud empty heaven like a hell, Estranged from the field and the beast and his own body And kin to the mothering earth only in death. I cannot break this knot, but I know he thoughtAnd I thought too in the wizardry of that momentOur sunwashed cities despicable and meaningless, Our splendid artistic productions abominable, Our majestic pantheon foul as a kennel, The harbor jostling with keen ships and mariners From the farthest ocean, trivial as a sigh. And joy unimportant too. The dignity of sorrow Was the only blessing under the cloud of his god. I say these are faces of stone no years can weather. They scheme to take your ease. Listen, you nations: They will lure you from your spontaneous ecstasies And positive possessions, and with themselves, Carry you forth on arduous pilgrimages Whose only triumph can be a bitter knowledge Out of the suffering they make our worth. They see the desert in the growing leaf: [931] That is their sickness. The sky will be darker then; The White Lady of splendid thighs and bosom Without a seedsman or a harvester, A pallid virgin; and the lands beneath Dark with this god and people. I who am wise Through the sacred harlots' embraces know the syllables (Ah, they are powerful and barbarous!) Of the secret incantation that gives them strength. Hear how they thunder! Listen: Issachar Levi simon reuben judah dan Zebulun asher naphtali menassah ephraim. [22] ...