Jerusalem!
There you lie.
Hills and valleys
        cup and fold themselves
                 about you.
Strange...
These months
         your very name has been
The causer
          of my faster-beating heart.
And
         yet...
Now as I gaze
Something vaguely is...
                                                   wrong.
Perhaps
I thought your spires
Should bear the eastern sun.
Perhaps
I thought the virgin moon
Should rest upon your dome..
Perhaps
I thought your very walls
Should be arrayed in stars.
Perhaps
I did,
O city of dusty rock,
Perhaps indeed
                           I did.
I feel the dry wind-song
     upon my drier face.
Perhaps
At home they, too, hear a song
As wind and spring
Glide in
           and settle to the earth.
And flowers bend low
                                          to kiss
                                                 the garden path.
And rain falls
                       on stones
                                  on soil
                                           on lips.
Perhaps
My eyes are tired of dust.

Jerusalem!!
The battle has begun...
Charge on!
             Charge on!
And trample thy wind-song
        in one great iron surge
                   of man and horse
                            of rising dust
                                    and smoke.

(by Jo Anzalone    July 1964)

BACK TO INDEX