Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

to reorganise.’ Aaron cried:

‘We cannot survive if we do not. Already

Water discipline is bad. Food is stolen,

Selfishly hoarded. We need police, weapons,

A disciplinary court.’ Moses said: ‘The time is not yet.

We are not yet out of Egypt.’ Joshua spoke:

‘We’re a five days’ march out of Pithom. As for Egypt,

It belongs to our past, a past to be wiped out.

We are already living in the future.

Perhaps Aaron is too old to feel the flame of the future.

We organise in a new way – from within.

Not the Egyptian way. He talks of police,

Of disciplinary courts. That won’t be our way.’ –

‘There is only one way’, said Aaron hotly. But Moses:

‘Not yet. I say again not yet. Nor is the past

To be wiped out. If all others forget,

If even Egypt forgets, we have to remember.

He brought us out of Egypt. Write that in your hearts.’

Then Miriam spoke: ‘Many of our women, I fear,

Still have their hearts in Egypt. All they remember

Is gossip around the fountain at nightfall,

The daily baking of bread. They whine for it –

The bread of Egypt.’ Joshua said: ‘Even the young,

A few of them, talking about going back. To the

Only life they knew – whips and tyranny

As part of the order of nature. But I dealt with them.’

Moses smiled, asked how. ‘Talked with them,

I and some of the other progressives.’ Moses said:

‘A good word, progressive. Progress means

Going forward. No matter to what. Just forward.

Tomorrow we go forward to meet the water.’ –

‘Water to cross?’ asked Aaron. And Moses: ‘Hardly.

No boats, no bridging, no fording places.

We have to keep to the western shore, upstream.’

Joshua said: ‘Still on Pharaoh’s soil. Or sand.

I somehow still feel him breathing down my neck.’

‘Let us’, smiled Moses, ‘now do what must be done –

Go round the encampments. See to the sick.

Soothe the querulous. Put our

Fractious children to bed.’ Smiling. They all smiled,

With the first faint lines forming on mouth and brow

Of loving exasperation.

           And Pharaoh said,

From his chariot, in his ornate armour, the lines forming

Of geometrical pursuit, the squadron leaders

Calling out names, said to his chief of staff:

‘A minimum of violence you understand.

We are not fighting a war. There are no army.

Threats, however, will be much in order. Hostages,

Especially high ones. As for Moses…’ Moses, sir?

‘No violence, no. He is to be brought back.

Stand trial. A public execution. Formal charge.

Formal arrest. The charge? All the charges in the world –

Blasphemy, disaffection, treason, murder.

Very much murder.’

           In rocky terrain, at sunset,

Joshua sat alone, fashioning a bow. Arrows,

Already fashioned, lay neatly by him. Then he saw,

Out of the sun, a cloud of moving dust,

He peered narrowly, then ran to make his report.

But Moses already had heard, saying to Aaron:

‘You hear nothing?’ – ‘Nothing unusual.’ Moses said:

‘Pharaoh must know I can hear him. We expected this.’

Joshua running towards them, pointing. ‘A cloud of dust,’

Moses said. ‘The dust of his chariots. The masters

Are coming to reclaim their property.’ And Joshua:

‘What do we do? What do we fight with? I always said

That sooner or later it would be a matter of fighting.’ –

‘Sooner or later, yes,’ said Moses. ‘But not now.

We do not fight the Egyptians. Nor do we

Go back into slavery. What is left to us?

We progress, Joshua. We move on.’ Joshua, gulping:

‘I say it with respect, but – ‘ And Moses: ‘Yes, I am mad.

And our cause is mad. And the Lord God is mad.’

But, those miles distant, at nightfall, Pharaoh was saying:

‘They will never cease to be slaves. Slaves

To hunger and thirst, no doubt, at this very moment.

At least we can liberate them from that. Slaves

To geographical circumstance. They cannot progress.

They can, of course, go sideways like crabs. But,

Whatever they do, they are certainly pincered.’

At first light, sir? ‘Oh yes’, said the Lord Pharaoh.

‘Their humiliation must be clearly visible.’

But, those miles distant, at nightfall, Moses stood

On a rock, looking down into a swirl of waters.

A wind blew from the west. The voices in his head

Were louder than the turbulent Sea of Reeds.

Why could we not stay in Egypt? At least we were fed.

At least we slept in a bed. Let us go back to

Slavery, as you call it. If that was slavery,

What name do we find for this? Are there not enough

Graves in Egypt? Dathan’s words. Dathan,

Truculent with his rebels, crying out:

‘Are there not enough graves in Egypt,

Since you bring us into the desert to find them here?

I was well enough off in Egypt. The lords of Egypt

Could be generous to those they knew were their friends.

Are there any ready to return with me to Egypt?’

And then the shame of it, Joshua’s discovery:

Dathan and his runagates, stuffing into sacks

The Israelite treasury, then, discovered, crying:

‘We were just protecting the treasury, no more.

There are thieves among us. I know what you are thinking.

But we have no such intention. We are all together in this.

We trust Moses. We trust Aaron. We trust you, Joshua.’

Then Joshua and some more of the young progressives,

Hit out, hit. Warm in his cloak, Moses

Reviewed all this sadly, snatching sleep,

Praying even in his sleep, then waking to the

First streak of dawnlight, aware of

Some change that had dawned in his sleep.

The wind was blowing out of the dawn.

‘The wind,’ he whispered, ‘is blowing out of the…’

And then: ‘Lord, if it be your will, if it be your will.’

He stood, praying as others came to see

The morning over the waters. They looked down in awe

At the waters ruffled by the wind out of the dawn,

A wind that seemed, oh God, to be parting the waters

As a comb parts hair. ‘Look,’ Aaron said,

‘See what the wind is doing to the waters.’

But they could not see what the wind was doing to the

Vanguard of Pharaoh’s army, the pillar of the cloud

Swollen and all about the horsemen, the sand in their eyes,

And in their horses’ eyes, hindering the advance,

Nor were their eyes turned to the west. Into the east,

As the sun rose, moved the Israelites, towards

Moses on the shore, making his decision, offering

A wordless prayer, stoutly raising his staff,

Then Moses, first, into the whistling wind,

Into the hair-parting of the Sea of Reeds,

Aaron after, the