THE PROPHET
after A. S. Pushkin
Tormented by hunger for the living God,
I scoured for manna in the wilderness
When a seraph, crossing my thorny path,
Took me under his self-righteous wings.
With hands drawn like ethereal dreams
He touched the horizons of my sunken face:
A teeming abyss stretched before my eyes
Beneath the plenitude of a harvest moon.
He struck the drums of my untuned ears
With resounding news of nature's prime.
And I beheld the sky rise up like bread
And heard mountains burst like cherubim
And saw monsters swallowing the deep
And felt the ripening of the lowly vine.
Unleashing the fury of his right hand,
The angel ripped out my crooked tongue
And, within my mouth's wild confines,
Planted the wise serpent's healing sting.
Across the open vistas of my flesh
He cut a path with his blazing sword
And took my foolish heart by storm
And filled its chambers with live coals.
As I lay in the desert like a corpse,
I heard God's voice above the ground:
"Arise, prophet, behold the earth.
Move and be moved by my will.
Leap over perilous seas and lands
And on parched lips set my Word."
Benjamin Sher
October 1, 1999
[Published in SlavFile, Summer, 2001]