III

After Reading Translations of Ancient
            Texts on Stone and Clay

The Pharaoh of the Exodus is eight feet tall;
of black granite; a god and a sun.
You must have seemed very small, Moses,
standing before him pleading for Israel;
hide, Jacob,
between two rocks in the water, bow down
among the bushes of the desert!

All is well with Assyria; all is well with the temples;
all is well with every fortress of the King!
Let the magicians recite the litanies beside the river,
and send the King his amulet, “To-rest-in-the-wilderness-and-
      sleep-again-in-the-palace;”
lead out the white horse in trappings of silver;
muster the bowmen with waterskis and baskets;
set the tents of Israel on fire, set his cities on fire!

The colored tiles fall from the walls,
weeds lift the flags of marble;
the tame lions pace the corridors,
and the spearmen with frizzled beards
lean on their spears in the palace.

IV
Wouldn’t they have been surprised, Saint Louis and his knights,
still bleeding from the scimitars,
if, crowding forward to greet the Queen of Heaven,
she were to turn from them and say, pointing to a wretched Jew,
“The bravest of you all is he,
who alone,
hedged in by monks and knights, by staves and swords,
in answer to your question
still denied me!”