Читать книгу The Scroll of Anatiya - Zoë Klein - Страница 9

You roam the streets of this city

and I follow, close

enough for the fringe of your robe

to lap at my ankles, but far

enough for a herd of wild elephants to pass.

2Your eyes are searching for one

innocent memory,

when God was quiet,

nights were dreamless,

and men paid no mind.

3Your eyes are searching the city squares

while I am searching

your eyes.

4A branch switches at my legs

and I fall.

5My cheek is torn against the coarse sand

and a man’s foot is hard on the small of my back.

6He kicks me over and I scream out:

“Jeremiah!” but no voice escapes.

He has a face harder than rock.

7O prophet, you roam the squares

searching for integrity,

and all the while it is trailing behind you,

8here inside me is integrity and goodness,

wonder and love, yet you never turn back,

you never turn and see.

9Is my prophet foolish?

He hears the obvious blare of horns

but is deaf to my silent cry.

10Are you not a prophet?

Can you not hear my unspoken word?

“Jeremiah!

“Jeremiah!

“Jeremiah!”

11He takes me with bruising grip

to the ravaging tent,

beats me upon my already bleeding scalp.

12The branch comes down as a switch

and with each blow

I see a shock of white light.

13An anger wells up in my throat,

strangely, not toward him.

No, toward him I feel profound sorrow.

14I feel the need to explain

that he has made a mistake,

that I am everything good left in Fair Zion,

everything beautiful hidden underneath,

and he does not realize, 15he thinks

I am just another street rat,

he does not know that I am the keeper of a love,

a love of a prophet.

16This is a mistake.

I can forgive a mistake.

But you . . .

17Why should I forgive you?

You have forsaken me, Jeremiah.

18How is it that you listen to God

the Most Secret

and cannot intuit my longing?

19How is it that your eyes are filled

with the rot of this city,

and are blind to the blooming

in my heart?

20And how could you keep

walking and keep searching,

and how dare you

take your infatuated God with you

when I am the one,

21I am the one who needs Him,

and needs you, stupid prophet!

and needs help

and please rescue

my integrity

which is the

only integrity

left, in this

22biting on my lip

and marking my neck,

23in the corner of my eye I see a child enter the tent

and glance over at me and my destroyer,

and he sees the child too,

shoos the child away

and tears my dress.

24Curse you, Jeremiah!

You have betrayed me!

~wrote Anatiya.

25Blessed child peeks into the tent again.

The man stabs under my skirts with the branch,

26a tree branch!

Of all things!

There is an insane laughter in my gut.

27Good-bye God! Go on and trail Your chosen like a pup,

leaving us alone to fend off Heaven’s cruelest ironies.

28A light, willowy sneeze from the tent flap,

young voyeur,

awash in afternoon light

chewing on a scythe of carob.

A glance to the side,

29is the child his son?

I turn and grasp a rock

and pound it once against his ear.

30His son pulls back and I roll out from under.

The man twists over with a thunder in his brain

and I run.

31I see my legs running and remember

the long arms of the stillbirth.

Strange connections.

32I know the man is not following me

but I am no longer running from him.

I am running from you,

33you who have proven to be mere wind.

You who care not

if a leopard lies in wait.

33Good-bye Jeremiah!

Cling to your God.

I shall surely forget you from afar

~wrote Anatiya.

34I have an enduring spirit,

perhaps even an ancient spirit.

35I run until my body is hollow.

A sheath of rock is before me

and vines with bitter berries creep up.

36I nestle in the back of a yawning cave

and blackout sleep overtakes me.

A nightmare surfaces out of the black,

a vision out of the tar . . .

37I am a fortified city.

My citizens peaceful but watchful inside.

38One night, the trees pull up their roots

and gather from the surrounding hills as an army.

They batter me down with clubs.

39I scratch forty days ~ wrote Anatiya ~ into the wall of the cave. There will be no end to this solitude. 40I eat berries and mushrooms and drink grassy tea. I think of Hannah’s lips, moving while no voice is heard. 41Eli assumed she was drunk and exiled her from the holy place. 42But I know that Hannah could herself hear her voice. I talk to myself here in this cave, and my voice resonates off the walls and rings in my ears.

43The stories I tell in this cave are a violin song.

There is a wind chime in this cave; it is my laugh.

44My song is a chorus of birds.

My faintest sigh is the coo of a dove.

45But to Eli, I am mute.

To Jeremiah, I was never born.

They have ears but cannot hear!

~wrote Anatiya.

46And You?

You Who set the sand as a boundary to the sea?

47You by Whose wisdom the hawk

spreads his wings to the south?

48You Who know the hosts of Heaven

and call every star by name?

Do you hear me?

49Forgive me, Lord Most High!

Forgive my headstrong challenge!

50I know, now, the truth about Cain and Abel.

Don’t You see?

51I love Jeremiah the way Cain loved You!

52Cain loved You and Abel kept seducing You

with gifts and plenty, and I

do love Jeremiah, and You keep seducing him

with exquisite words and daring missions,

53while all I have is this unruly vineyard

teeming with weeds and little foxes.

54O God! Do you have to be so beautiful?

55You Who bring the early and late rain in season,

56You Who paint bows of color across the mist

and beget the dewdrops,

57forgive my ugliness, my anger.

I am so tiresome and troublesome.

58Do not judge me, for I am an orphan.

59God knows that my deeds have been good,

but do not punish me on account of my wicked thoughts

~wrote Anatiya.

60It is an appalling and horrible thing

to be an ancient scroll,

filled with stories and secrets,

prophesies and truths,

61a tapestry of words sewn together

with golden thread,

hidden in an earthen jar sealed tightly,

and buried deep in a cave, in a sheath of rock,

where no one can find you, or touch you, or know you.