“And It Came About After the Death of Moses ”1 ©
Dan Lukiv, M.Ed.
English and Creative Writing
McNaughton Centre, Quesnel, BC, Canada
E-mail: lukivdan@shaw.ca
1.
Haghah 2—listen to
The word thoughts, like the hum
Or buzz of bees gathering their
Green or grey or yellow or brown
Treasures that cling to dangling
Legs. Listen. Hear the whole world,
The little round earth, the sum of cooing
Hearts locating their own treasures,
Finer than silver or gold or coral,
Filling thoughts with hope and wisdom
And soundness of mind. Listen to
These literate hearts, speaking from
Inside the flesh of men and women
And even children who love the stars
And brisk winds and juicy fruit
And everything else given to them to
Enjoy. See these children, spirit driven;
See the little Bezalels and Oholiabs
Cooing like doves, ruminating like
Gentle cows, adding their soft
Tones to the deeper resonance
Of reasonableness and obedience.
Hear bees everywhere, gathering
Their lifeblood, reminding everybody
With their little wings that a greater
Buzz in the hearts of men
Means a greater peace
In our little home.
2.
Children asked their parents, “What is
Wrong with the wind?” “Go to sleep.”
“I can’t! The wind in the palm trees has changed!”
Mothers and fathers sang songs, gave their children
Milk and warm hugs, and told them not to listen
To the wind anymore. “It will deceive you, my child.”
Then husbands and wives would tell each other lies
In the privacy of their beds, and try to laugh
At the world bigger than they could see.
Rahab brushed her hair in the unclear image
Of her copper mirror, and even there she noticed
In herself a change, and she knew the wind had
Done this. History would sometimes confuse her
With a hostess or innkeeper. But Rahab was not
Confused. As she ran her brush through her
Hair, she knew that she was a harlot whose heart
Had been changed by an awful, wonderful song
In the wind that was heading towards the Great
Sea.
3.
In the day the waters swallowed the earth,
And the Nile stank like dread;
In the day the Red Sea opened its gates in a
Gesture of goodwill,
But closed them, too, as if a warrior’s sword had sliced
His enemy in half;
In the day the Jordan exposed its earthy bed
For all history to read about
(Not to mention the landslides of 1267 and 1927 CE 3
That provided mundane peeps);
In the day a torrent washed away chariots and
Their dead masters at Kishon;
In the day that cisterns and wells refreshed weary men
Dehydrated by the hot sun;
In the day “the bath of water” cleansed to the bone;
In the day water flows from the unseen throne
Through the streets and homes and valleys
Of this earth some call ours, then this poem will
Exist as a minuscule memory of what happened
Once upon a time.
4.
Uncorked at Adam, water surged
Downhill, obedient to the Law of
Gravity, swirling around Affidavit-
Stones, concealing their abode as
A courthouse conceals a court,
Rushing headlong towards the Dead
Sea, a place of inferior salt,
Rushing like that greater number,
Like moths to open flames,
To their choice sweet in their desire to eat
Juicy fruit, like pomegranates,
Forever.
5.
At the frontier of Canaan,
Manna, humbling hoarfrost, white
Like coriander seed, but waxlike
And transparent, like bdellium
Gum; O how flaky!—like oiled
Sweetcakes!: It disappeared,
Yes, and the Prince of swifter
Soldiers, with sword drawn,
Stood upon holy ground
Before Joshua full of questions
And humility.
One day people would eat stranger
Bread 4, but others, shuddering at
Cannibalistic pictures in their heads,
Would throw up their arms
In disgust.
6.
Peek through this window—
The study of graves and tools,
Bowls and doorways,
Packed into earthly bowels—
And read fine papers: “No
City on that cite existed in the
1400s BCE.” 5
Five hundred years later,
Hiel, a man with vision, like Ahab
Who loved a sorcerer,
Laid footstones in Jericho,
But his oldest son, Abiram, died. This
Man of anti-curses put up
Doors, but his youngest son,
Segub, died.
Noah, who once had drunk too much
Wine, reproved Canaan for his
Perverted act, and cursed him,
But wise Gibeonites, in rags and
Worn-out sandals, who shared the
Bane that filled the land, gladly
Chose to live as dogs rather than die
As lions.6
Hiel learned much from these
Dogs. He was a first-degree man,
A right hand who saw his future
Fill up his mind. If professors
With picks could dig his voice
Out of the sand, would it speak
About the new Jericho, and how
Standing up to Jehovah’s curses
Really isn’t so bad?
7.
At a table that transcends
The space between sunsets
Or dark moons,
And the distance between the
Demise of empires, like
Babylon that fell in one night
And Greece that chopped
Itself into four, imagine
Achan, lover of gold and fine
Clothes and his family who died
At his side, seated with leprous
Gehazi and Judas the metaphor
Who lost his intestines; listen
To them speak in hushed
Voices, hiding their wisdom
Under their tongues.
8.
Like unused skin bottles,
In a smoky house, 7
All shrivelled up—these
Warriors; and their hearts,
Flattened by an omen:
Rising smoke from their
Burning homes, a city
In flames, a fortress
Of despair unleashed.
Like the smoke of Edom
And other beasts, how it
Rises through time;
Like smoke from the nostrils
Of Leviathan—
How the monster has died.
9.
Gibeonites, like men with ears pierced
By the awl, suing for peace;
Like men before the king’s son,
Bowed in obedience and humility,
Full of the yielding spirit that does
Not bite or trip or smash;
Gibeonites, who did not feel the chill
Of Pharaoh’s heart;
These Canaanite sons, like perfect
Adam naming animals, caring for Eden;
Like Rahab, looking after spies;
Like wise men with their ears to the
Door or doorpost, understanding
Themselves, with these words in
Their mouths, “Yes, master. Let me
Serve you forever.”
10.
How their throats, like the cave
At Makkedah, became their
Graves; how they turned their
Stiff necks, and fell: Five exalted
Ones! their mouths once full of plans,
Silenced as they hung on stakes,
Breathlessly waiting for the sunset
That would not come.
Their stratagems impotent,
Doomed like their glory—they
Lifted swords against Gibeon,
Under the light of the sun frozen
In mid air, exposing clever tactics
That turned into the face of chaos,
Twisted like despair. And in death,
Their hardened necks fell limp,
Along with their wide dreams and
Narrow splendour.
11.
O horses hamstrung,
Certainly your ineffectual
Jerking, O war-machines,
Held no symbolic signposts
In time, just as a dark pit in a
Young man’s heart, or broken
Bow, implies nothing significant.
O fearless soldiers on
Four good legs, how you yet
Carry Gog of Magog, to charge
About his uncelestial home, and
His Scythian brutes, of Tartar,
Driven by bottomless bellies.
O noble
Flesh with flowing manes and
Magnificent tails, fallen, like
Angels crazed by desire, and
One by unglory, fallen, like other
Soldiers in the days even beyond
Those of frogs that will spew from
The dragon’s mouth.
O horses, ineffectual, finished,
You symbolize nothing.
12.
I
Salem, mound of peace,
Home of twofold rest
In warm breezes that rustle
Olive leaves and carry soft
Echoes of that greater king-
Priest.
II
How the unkilled Jebus clan
Would gladly share their gods
And daughters. How the winds
Of Shinar would chase away
The warm breezes. Follow
The permutation of walls up
Walls down through centuries.
See the worship on flat rooftops
Where idols find love.
III
The greater Melchizedek in
A cube-city, a grander Salem,
345 miles per side—and see its
Wall, 210 feet high, of jasper,
Upon 12 gems, one chrysolite,
Another amethyst. See the
Names of 12 men upon
These. And see the interior
Of the cube: golden but clear
Like glass. What echoes in
Warm breezes have turned
Into songs of double peace?
IV
Salem, home of goodwill,
Enjoy your king-priest.
13.
I
Born a slave in a land dead
Without its Nile and fine silt,
How mighty you have grown,
A great tree thick with courage
And filled with the syrup of faith:
Your heart, an oasis of green
And sweet songs of little birds;
Your wrinkled skin the signature
Of a good name, desirable like
Daniel yet unborn; your hands
Callused with the work of uprooting
Altars and planting Moses’ words
In hearts and even the soil of new
Lands, like Bashan, home of massive
Oak trees and broad pastures—
II
O Joshua, you are not Egypt without
Its Nile, its banks rich with wild birds
Feasting on frogs, its belly rumbling
With the “great sea monster” and
Behemoth, its fields of grain
Moist and tall. You have grown
Old; your brothers see that in
Your stride, but your eyes, for
Those who look closely, reveal
Eagles soaring upon updraughts,
Waiting for the right moment to
Dive.
14.
Upon weathered chunks
Of pottery, dug out of
Egyptian sand by ecstatic
Titled men, reads a curse for
Akan, an enemy of Pharaoh
Who also loved his gods of war
And bloodshed, but Caleb,
An 85 year-old warrior
Unafraid of Goliaths and
Seasoned by wind and blazing
Sun, dismembered gods of sun
And frogs and death and
Lit them aflame or melted them
Down: The curse, his sword that
Originated not in Pharaoh’s mouth
Or dreams, but in his simple words:
“I shall certainly dispossess them,
Just as Jehovah promised.”
15.
Achsah, daughter of a soldier
Against giants, rode upon an
Ass, and clapped her hands
Because she wished for fields
Where spring waters flowed
To and fro like dreams and
Tinkled like gentle bells.
Her sharp-footed ride, patient
And brush-tailed, keener than
Wind-driven wild horses, held
Her aloft. O maiden!—what a prize
For Othniel, who captured a city,
Named Town of the Book, that
History has misplaced. This bride
And her groom, like lovers with
Stories that weave together
Centuries, full of children yet
Conceived, remembered in words
Older than the oldest sequoia,
But still they touch young hearts
That beat a great distance from
Their bygone fame.
16.
Undriven completely from
Their place of birth and two-
Horned Baal, whose right hand
Held a bludgeon and left a
Lightning spear—
See too this bull-god’s nude wife,
Ashtoreth, grotesquely curved
By her progeny, her wealthy
Artisans:
O these descendants of Ham,
Who didn’t cover his father
Like his brothers Shem and Japheth,
Became the anchor of a noisy
Ship filled with omens and unnatural
Love that Jehovah wanted blown
Away, or sunk.
17.
O Syrian she bear, of course forests
Had to fall to the axe, to clear away
Not only iron scythes of chariots
That spilled blood, but your claws that
Even lions backed away from. Two
Of you would make short work of
42 children who had learned to jeer
From their mothers and fathers who
Loved them. Surprised, or anxious
About your own children, how you
Maim with swipes of death. How you
Tear apart warm flesh with your teeth.
Like two-legged beasts of the forest,
You, and the mountain trees that
Hide shadows and faces, had to go.
18.
Now it’s Wadi er-Rababi, but
Then, Valley of Hinnom 8: a part
In the head of hair named Jacob;
A place beyond Sheol and hope,
Of no return; the anti-memorial
Tomb, where the dead are dead
And not living like Abraham,
Although he sleeps,
Because men like him are all alive
To the happy God who keeps
Earth for his friends.
19.
Asher, snug against Tyre—
Home of Melkart, god-in
Chief, stamped on coins,
And Astarte, friend of rabbits,
Eggs, and lust—
How this walled boundary,
Along with its greater twin,
A monster anchor in the Great
Sea, would befriend you in trade
And spit on your altars.
O the self-love of these twins,
Beautiful in their geometry and
Palatial design—places for that
Serpent to slide through in glee.
This two-headed Leviathan
Of self-worship: how one aglitter
Would fall to Nebuchadnezzar’s 9
Sword, and the other—the moon’s
Rival?—to Alexander’s causeway
That would chew through rumbling
Sea.
Asher, see this place of setting sun
Just outside your entirety:
You and your brothers would pay
Wheat and barley, wine and oil,
For copper and cedars, and gold
From Spain.10 But its two-headed
Treachery, its oily deals to sell your
Sons into Greek chains: See these
Twins who’d rise up like refuse in
Jehovah’s nose.
20.
The avenger of blood,
Unable to land a lethal blow;
O the slave repurchased from
The fat hand of the vineyard
Owner; and the wheat and
Barley fields, returned to
Patriarchs asleep in graves.
An old man repurchases a
Young widow who leaves
The land of her birth to glean
Ears of grain. Imagine what
A son she will produce, able
To reverse the way of the
Worm that eats its way
Through men.
O innocent manslayer,
What a great drama
You unfind yourself in.
21.
Ah! sweet rest—lilies’ fragrance
That fills the nose with joy!
Groaning flies away, like
Bats to their putrid caves!
The muscled man, alongside
His axe, rests, but does not
Sleep. He rejoices! like a
Bridegroom. He wonders,
“My God, how did you feel
On that final day, after all things
Moving and still praised you
With silence and song?”
Rest from dread of enemies,
Boils, and blotchy skin: Sleep
Husband, wife, child; dream
About syrup and milk, and seeds
That will grow into platefuls of
Food. Rejoice in your special
Day between the sunrises, and
In the rest that finds itself in work
That men do everyday, forever,
But not for themselves.
22.
This inferred crack in Jacob’s dwelling
Place of vineyards and grain fields
And homes from where prayers
To Jehovah would billow upwards
Like the smoke of sacrificial lambs
Or bulls; or thoughtless words from
The thickened tongue of a foolish man;
Or shrivelled apple upon the leprous
Brown of an oxidized copper bowl;
Or haste to light oneself aflame,
To gnash teeth over the supposed
Insult of mispronouncing everything
YHWH stands for; or nettle in the
Heart of stupidity—
O this altar of witness, scholars
Translate for us, where were your
Stinging hairs, and your toxic juice
That sets epidermal layers on fire?
Listen,
While all the world tosses
And turns, you are silent, like a
Sleeping dove.
23.
Whether pumping celestial or earthly
Blood, O heart that conceals busy
Caves and thoughts higher than Babel,
What covered pits you hoard for naive
Thinkers to fall into. Your crafty
Designs, hidden nets, dark plans conjured
In dense forests—your thump THUMP
Metre, like distant drums that lie, and
These echoes you spin, draped in
Words about what bellies love and
Eyes want to see in the mirror:
O what new things crawl about under
The sun 11?
What bait will you use, knowing you want
Thorns in their eyeballs and their flanks
Scourged? How did this all start, before
You conceived of bad fruitage in the
First garden?
24.
A small boy, with bits of date
Glued between teeth, sits upon
His father’s lap, and says, “Tell
Me about Abraham, whose father
Worshiped Nanna, moon-god of
The Chaldeans. Tell me about Ur
That faced the sea, and how gold
And silver and lapis lazuli filled its
Paved courtyards, and running water
Its basins, and how brick houses
Plastered and whitewashed lined
Streets. Tell me about Abraham
And Terah who left “Ur of the Chaldeans”
To live in tents that flapped in the wind
And could not keep out desert sands
That entered like gnats. Tell me about
The Euphrates that Abraham and Sarah
And all his flocks crossed on the day
That would become our Passover,
And about the dates”—he grinned and
Showed his milk-white teeth speckled
With brown—“and the figs and
Pomegranates and grapes and almonds
That he ate, from this very land that we
Have inherited, as he wandered like a
Locust, and tell me about the wells that
He drew water from that now belong to
Us. Tell me about these things, father,
Before I forget them all.” And the young
Father looked over to his wife, amongst
Other grinding women 12, and both had
Tears in their eyes.
Endnotes
1 All Biblical quotes and references: The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1984). Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.
2 The Hebrew word for meditate; also rendered as coo, mutter, or speak to oneself.
3 Garstang, J., & Garstang, J.B.E. (1940). The story of Jericho. London, England: Hodder & Stoughton.
5 A paraphrase of archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon’s conclusions, which contradict those of Professor John Garstang’s, who believed the walls of Jericho had fallen flat as if through an earthquake about 1400 BCE.
7 Psalm 119:83.
8 English: Valley of Hinnom; Hebrew: Geh Hinnom; Greek: Gehenna.
9 Nebuchadnezzar II.
10 Tarshish.
11 Ecclesiastes 1:9.
12 Ecclesiastes 12:3.
© Copyright © 2010 by Dan Lukiv. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
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