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

have sinned once,

Will we not sin again? If we were perfect,

Would we not have need of thee?’ Moses, kneeling,

Was thoughtful (weak – forgiving). After sunset,

Zipporah, his wife, preparing Ghersom, his son,

For sleep, heard Ghersom’s question once more:

‘Is he still very busy?’ – ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘busy.

He has the whole of Israel to look after.’ –

‘When’ asked Ghersom, ‘will he be with us again?’

But, before she could answer, a shadow stood between

His bed and the lamp of sheep-fat. Ghersom said:

‘You had better not stay too long, sir. Israel needs you.’

And Moses smiled and wept and took his wife

In trembling arms. ‘Who am I’, trembling, ‘to reproach,

Even to talk of sin or weakness? To forgive

If forgiveness is needed – enough. Forgive me too,’

As she sobbed in his arms. ‘We all have to start again.’ –

‘It was little enough’, she sobbed. ‘Wine in my head,

A pair of young arms in the dance. But it was too much.’ –

‘Learning is heard,’ he said. ‘We all have to learn.

And now we can start again.’ There were family embraces,

Sobs, even laughter as Ghersom said once more:

‘Israel needs you. How long will you stay?’

But the time of staying under the mountain in the valley

Of Jethro was now to end. An order of march was worked out,

Moses drawing with his stave on the sandy earth,

Saying: ‘There in the midst the ark of the covenant,

With its own bodyguard drawn from the Levites. No enemy

Shall take it, no infidel defile it. It is our hub,

And, as twelve spokes, the fixed and changeless posts

Of the tribes,’ showing – Dan, Reuben, Benjamin…

‘A battle order,’ Joshua said. And Moses:

‘You may call it that.’ Then Caleb: ‘When do we march?’

And Moses pondered. ‘Miriam,’ he said to Aaron.

‘How is she?’ Aaron said: ‘Very sick. But ready.

Ready to go to the land.’ She will not see it,

Moses told himself. But it is better thus,

To die striving forward, in others’ hope.

‘So,’ he pronounced, ‘we move tomorrow at dawn.’

There was weeping at the well when they took their leave of Jethro

And his daughters, some now married, some not. Weeping

Of many over many graves, brethren buried,

Much else buried. Miriam, pale, wasted,

Lay in rugs on an ox-cart, Eliseba tending her.

Just before the raising of the staff as signal, incorrigible

Dathan rooted in the ashes of the punitive fire

And came up with a thumb-nail fragment of the gold, holding

That nothingness up to the sun; the sun swallowed it.

They took their last look of Horeb, its peak no longer

Enmisted: eagles circled there. Towards rock,

Desert, thirst, hunger, the law in their midst,

They moved.

12

DEATH AND THE LAW

At the next oasis Miriam’s end drew near.

Moses wiped her fever, in the coolness of a cave,

And Miriam shuddered painfully, hearing from without

That marriage song of the young: ‘It will happen again.

Again.”’But Moses soothed her, saying: ‘This

Is a different excitement: they already smell

The air of our promised land, or think they do.

The hope lies with the young. The old, alas,

Are more than ever set in the old ways.

They have learned fear but not yet understanding.

And you, my sister, how is it with you?’

She murmured: ‘I lose blood. I am weak. But feel

Little pain. I shall be glad to move on.

Move on. No more. Towards something even if we

Never reach it.’ – ‘We shall reach it,’ he said.

‘There’s a hunger to build – especially with the young.

To build, say, a temple and then a city

To hold the temple.’ She said: ‘I will not see it,

But it matters little enough. My work, the work

I was ordained to do has been long done.

You were my work. My name perhaps will be known

For that. Girls given the name of Miriam.

It is something. I rescued a child from murderers.

And if I had not rescued that child – ’ He said:

‘You were ordained to. It was all laid down.

We are all in God’s pattern.’ But she, distressed:

‘Was that too part of God’s pattern? Is then evil

Part of God’s pattern?’ – ‘We must believe it,’ he said.

‘If evil is in man it must come from his maker.’

‘And it goes on’, she said. ‘It will go on.

Law will not quench it. I see much evil to come.

Law will not contain it. Nor will punishment.’ –

‘But men,’ he insisted, ‘learn from their own transgressions.

There will be no more building of golden calves.

Other things perhaps – man is ingenious.

He gets his ingenuity from God.’

And then she wept. ‘They had ceased to be men and women.

I could do nothing.’ Later her mind rambled

Or grew prophetic. ‘I heard the soldiers singing

Their dirty song. And God surely was there,

For if they had not been singing they would have heard,

Heard him crying. A new-born cry, very loud

In the night. But God made them sing their song,

Which was filthy and evil, and so they did not hear.

Little floating cradle. Meant to live,

He was meant to live. Girl girl, they said,

Who are you, girl, can you get him a wet nurse, girl?

And I did. Poor mother. But he lived, lived.

A pretty baby. They made him an Egyptian.’

(The moon showed Passover, the angel passing over.

‘Will he pass over tonight?’ the children asked,

Making sour faces over the bitter herbs,

The hard dry bread.) ‘They would not see it,’ said Miriam.

‘Many gods, like bits of pottery,

A housewife’s pride, but not the one true God.

So simple, and so many thousands of years

For it to come to the light. And still they will not

See it. And when they see it they will always say:

What good is it, what good? For the pains of life

Will not be easier. Truth makes nothing easier.

But truth must be sought.’ Eliseba, hiding tears,

Said: ‘Rest my dear, rest.’ But Miriam said:

‘Oh, there will be no rest. And when it is built,

The city, it will be knocked down, and the temple

Destroyed with the city. And it will go on and on.

They will wander and be made to wander further.

For there is no abiding city. Only the dark.

I must speak to my brother Moses.’ Moses said:

‘I am here, Miriam.’ She said: ‘You will not see it.

You will be forbidden to see it. It will take a

Long time to