BECAUSE

Because the voice summons me
in my wound of memory
from a millennia of visions
in seeds, dreams,saints,glories
and because my brother and sister
are not to be judged
but already have an epitaph
in this world and another
and because the moonlight hides
in the Evergreen by the Blue Hills
and the birds are wandering
amid the branches under sunshine
because all that I was and am
reporting is in the mangroves
after the rain shower
do not ask me to be silent
at afternoon prayer
or going about a pilgrimage to Sarah
at Hebron in the moonlight
in dusty sandals on our feet
and breaking the glass
at a wedding after the wine
or hearing the sea
from my Cape window
or the image of Chagall's angels
with trembling hands
nailed to a tree
I have already bathed
in the Jordan over the river beds
three times seen baptisms
by the midsummer pomegranates
and tasted the fruit of Eden's garden
known of the loins of my Savior
rejoicing in the wood
of the Jezreel Valley
got lost in the desert
found the Jerusalem stones
to be very handwritten on walls
of prayer wheels
expect the seraphim and cherubim
to arrive in early harvest time
in the brick crescendos
from the vessels of trumpets
with motioning lips
yet thirsty for a dig
of a lost map of the holy land
in the carried off topography
by the open fields
wanting to rise in sunshine
of the ocean sails
reading Whitman
on a banana boat in Jamaica
with Derek Walcott,
taking an escalator
in the Moscow underground
with the Beats.