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

could

Rightly put you away. And the children would grieve,

Lacking their mother. It is a bad business.’

The woman spoke. ‘He knows nothing. We have been careful.’ –

‘Not careful enough’, said Moses, ‘to prevent my knowing.

If I know, others know. He will know. Soon, if not yet.

We face the hard task of building a nation.

The bricks of that edifice are the families.

If the families crack the whole structure totters.’

The man said: ‘We are a very small crack. In a

Very small brick.’ But Moses: ‘Never think of yourself

As an exception that makes no difference to the whole.

For why should not everyone, if he so desires,

Be an exception? Only God is above the law.

But God works through the law. You, my children,

Are breaking the law.’ The woman said: ‘What will you do?’

And Moses: ‘I have done all that I wish to do.

For the moment. But remember – in your bed

Another lies, a third. He parted the waters.

He killed the masters who enslaved you. And already

You destroy what he bids you build.’ And so he left them.

The woman said to the man: ‘Does he have a wife?’ –

‘He’s old’, said the man. ‘He’s beyond passion. Love.’

And so they fell once more to their embrace,

But she started, uneasy, thinking she heard

One of the children crying, and though he tried

To imprison her once more in his embrace,

She resisted, rose and left him. In an embrace

Wholly sanctified, Aaron and Eliseba,

She of the smooth brow and sweet tongue, lay,

Quiet after love, the children sleeping,

Fruit in a bowl, water in a pitcher near by,

And Eliseba said: ‘Why then not here? Here

Is everything.’ But Aaron said: ‘Because the promise

Is to be fulfilled elsewhere, not here. Simple,

Simple as that.’ But she: ‘Will we live to see it?’ –

‘If by we’, said Aaron, ‘you mean our people –

Yes, I believe so. If by we you mean yourself,

Myself – I am not sure. But I believe our children

Will see it.’ She said: ‘We could settle here

Very comfortably. Fine pastures. Much water.

The whole place laughs and rings with water.’ He:

‘No. We have to have more than a mere oasis.

We have to build a city, build a temple.’ – ‘Have to?’ –

‘Have to, yes. Call it the fate of a nation.’

She mocked gently, smiling: ‘Those big words.’

Aaron said: ‘I do not, I think, believe

There is anything after this life. We die alone

And go alone into the dark. Us – you, me,

Each and all of the others. But all of us

Made into a nation – that is different. Here is a

Man called Aaron and a woman called Eliseba.

There is a new kind of human being we call Israel.’ –

‘And where’ she asked, ‘is this new kind of human being?’

‘Trudging through the desert,’ Aaron answered,

‘Seeking the appointed place. And still being made.

It is a formless lump so far – it has to be moulded,

Kneaded, like bread. But when it is made,

This new being, when it lives and breathes and follows

The laws that sustain it, there will be no end to it.’

She thought and said: ‘There have been others, nations.

They died. You told me once that Egypt is dying.’

Aaron said: ‘We are different. We cannot die,

Because, for the first time, the nation will not be

Greater than the smallest within it. It will live for ever

While men and women will dies, but it will not live

By eating the flesh of those within it. Not like Egypt.

Do you understand?’ She grimaced, saying: ‘No.

We had better sleep. Did he tell you all this?’ –

‘Some of it,’ Aaron said. ‘Some of it

I worked out for myself.’ She said: ‘Poor Moses.

Alone. No wife. No children. Does he even know

If they are still alive?’ Aaron said: ‘He does not doubt it.

Nor do I doubt it. They will be there, waiting,

Under Mount Horeb. That,’ he smiled, ‘is one reason

Why we hurry. Why we leave early tomorrow.’

But so many left with regret, some weeping,

Some loud in anger at once more engaging the desert,

When here were date-palms and springs and rest and pasture.

Soon hunger and thirst, under that metal sky,

Sand and sand and sand beneath, raised voices:

Good fish and meat and bread, onions, garlic,

In Egypt, Egypt. Why did you take us from Egypt?

We were happy there. And some spoke of the oasis

As a home they were wrenched from, till Moses rose and cried:

‘Will you never cease to complain? Why God chose you

From all the peoples of the earth I do not know,

Will never understand. Did you not have your chance

To fill your store-bags in the oasis of Elim?

You were careless, wasteful, improvident. Ill-disciplined,

Selfish, totally ungrateful. You say you lack bread.

You say you lack meat. Well, believe me –

You shall have flesh to eat this evening and

In the morning bread to the full. You have the

Lord’s promise, through me, that this will be so.

And now you smile, changing the set of the face

Like a child that howls to be picked up and then sees

Its mother come running. Ah, I am sick of you’,

Seeing the petulant, scolded children’s faces,

Adding: ‘But, God help me, you are all I have.’

But there was no petulance, only relief and wonder

When, at nightfall, a monstrous cloud of quails

Was thrown out of the sky. Joshua, Caleb,

The provident young, schooled by foreknowing Moses,

Were ready with the nets they had improvised,

And they caught the quails, and the quails were spitted

And roasted and eaten – another miracle,

And they were ready, picking the bones, to grow used to miracles.

Miriam said to Moses: ‘You take credit for

A miracle when there is none. You told me

About the migration of quails when we were in Pithom

And I was scrubbing the dirt off you.’ Moses smiled.

‘I never take credit for miracles. Yes, the quails.

They rest at night in the scrublands. They are easily caught.

A miracle, I suppose, is the thing we need

Happening when we need it. I suppose now

They would like bread to sop up the drippings.’ –

‘Will they get their bread?’ she asked, and Moses said:

‘I said in the morning. I did not say which morning.

Have you heard of manna?’ – ‘Bread’, she said, ‘from heaven.’ –

‘True, it comes from heaven, even when