"The Revenant"
(for Stephen Dunn, and for Rich
Harvey)
1.
I lay in my grave
like a sailor, under
the sea ...
Into my slumber came the old
words,
the Prophet’s’ words,
and the voices of people,
and I didn't
understand;
2.
I dreamed of my father, weeping,
...and I longed
for the salt taste
of his
tears ...
And it seemed that an old
Gentile, a poet,
came chanting a Kaddish, a Death
Prayer:
“…dead
nations never rise…,”
as his ghost
vanished in sunlight
over Jerusalem, Shatila, and
Harlem…
3.
…then I reached out,
my arms
struck wood,
my strength became
mist,
'til I stood, looking about,
wondering at cold and night...
Now I’m beyond the glow
of the
street lamp,
beckoning outside the window…
...I gibber in dusty attics;
...in the slime of cellars I
thirst,
I cry out ...
5.
I’m an old wound, a vanished
dream...
I
am a lost nation; I am the weeds,
the leaves falling
in Autumn,
the chill at the end of Autumn,
that haunts,…and
lingers,
…and doesn’t go away.
