The Weeping White Broom
In the Land of Winter, this country where I abide— where the white cows plod on with snowy horns, and the monastery hazelnut trees are pearly with new fallen drifts, their nuts are frozen, acacia-coloured, speaking of the arid Negev still in their shells. In this Land of Winter, monastic marble and cold, I know something of Israel, and the grief before the rising. The desert lands, crackling with dust and weeping white broom, like Hagar weeping while she throws her son-child down under its branches, and the shell of a man reduced to ash. For his judgement over me has been like the coals of the white broom . . . Still in my shell, I am a coal: I am old as brittle broom in the Negev, knowing the provision of repentance, but abiding, pouring wax for hand-dipped candles in beeswax, the golden mass: a fiery Saturn, held in its many moons, from Titan to moonlets. Dear poets, When will I become soft, and malleable as wax? I visit Bear Mountain like a bird. Winter is...
