Collected Poems

by Anthony Burgess

  Aaron and Koreh strolled among the tents

  On an informal patrol when a voice hailed them

  With ‘Any news from up there?’ It was Dathan,

  A little drunk, stepping out of the shadows.

  ‘News?’ said Aaron. And Dathan: ‘I apologise.

  A very homely and earthly word. What news

  Of the cow in calf? What news

  Of the woman stoned by the well for alleged adultery?

  I merely wondered – well, when he is returning to us.

  It seems to be already a long time.’ –

  ‘Two Sabbaths,’ said Koreh, ‘if you would be precise.

  One of which, you will recall, you neglected to keep.’ –

  ‘I forgot,’ said Dathan. ‘You will remember that I said I forgot.

  You will also remember that I said I thought it was nonsense.’ –

  ‘And that you were rebuked for blasphemy,’ said Aaron.

  ‘The Lord’s Day is not to be termed nonsense.’ –

  ‘I thought we were all free men now,’ Dathan said,

  ‘All entitled to a free opinion. Rebuked, indeed,

  For blasphemy, indeed. Who says it’s blasphemy?

  You? Him?’ And Koreh: ‘You should be sleepy, Dathan,

  Not ready for argument. Go to your bed now.’

  And Dathan: ‘When I wish, sir. When I am ready.

  Or is there a law about going to bed?’ Aaron answered:

  ‘Do not sneer at the law. The law is your

  Tent and your blanket. The law watches over you

  While you sleep.’ – ‘Pretty words,’ Dathan sneered,

  ‘But tell me this: where is this law you sing about?

  Is it written in books? Is it engraved on stone?

  I hear much of the law but see nothing of it.’ –

  ‘All in good time,’ said Koreh. ‘You will see

  All that you wish to see. The law on stone

  Will soon come down from that mountain. Then, Dathan,

  You can pore over the law to your heart’s content.’ –

  ‘I wonder,’ Dathan said. ‘Is that blasphemy too?

  Blasphemy to wonder whether he’ll ever come down again?

  He’s growing old and weak: the wolves could get him.

  His heart could stop. He may have received new orders:

  Go down, Moses, to the other side. There are

  Other slaves to bring to freedom.’ Aaron frowned.

  ‘Have a care, Dathan. You do not know what you are saying.’ –

  ‘Ah, more blasphemy, is it?’ Dathan said.

  ‘More law-breaking? I’d be glad to see that law

  Written down somewhere. And now I shall go to bed,

  Like a good law-abiding citizen. God watch over you.’

  And he stumbled off in the shadows. Aaron and Koreh

  Looked at each other. Aaron shrugged. The two

  Continued their patrol. The next day came

  With the things it had to bring – sheep to pasture,

  A cow calving, a human child brought forth

  And, that night, to the blowing of bull’s horns

  And the plucking of the harp and the breathing of the flute,

  A celebratory song from Miriam, a dance from the maidens,

  Extolling their God of life:

  His strength is the strength of the bull that charges in thunder,

  His wonder is in the flow of the seed of men.

  Again and again, above in the skies and under

  The skies, in the gold noon and the moon’s gold,

  His power and his wonder are told.

  Halleluiah, halleluiah.

  Outside their tent, in fireglow, Eliseba,

  The wife of Aaron, spoke to Aaron: ‘So no news.’ –

  ‘As I have said before,’ said Aaron, ‘we do not

  Talk of news.’ – ‘I thought perhaps Joshua

  Might have come down – with news, or whatever I am to call it.’ –

  ‘Joshua has his orders.’ – ‘And you have yours.’ –

  ‘And I have mine,’ said Aaron. ‘Orders to give orders.

  My order was to keep order. Which I am doing.’ –

  ‘Yes,’ said Eliseba, ‘which you are doing’. –

  ‘You have some strange thought in that head of yours,’

  Aaron smiled, and she said: ‘No strange thought.

  A very natural thought. You keep order

  Until Joshua is ready to come from that mountain.

  Then Joshua keeps order.’ – ‘But this is nonsense’,

  Aaron said. ‘Joshua has his work. I have mine.’ –

  ‘Whatever it is,’ she said, and he: ‘I am his voice.

  Joshua is his right arm. That has been understood,

  Clearly, ever since the war.’ – ‘War?’ she said,

  In feigned puzzlement. ‘Oh, the little desert skirmish

  With those unwashed desert people. General Joshua.

  Joshua the great warrior.’ – ‘Joshua’ Aaron said,

  ‘Is a good man and good leader. Believe me,

  We shall need good military leaders before that time comes

  When we settle down in peace. What have you against him?’ –

  ‘Nothing,’ Eliseba said. ‘I just wonder sometimes

  How I fit in – How you, I mean – ‘ He was stern, saying:

  ‘What you mean, I think, is that you have not been

  Accorded the respect you consider your due.

  You want the deference you consider owing

  To the wife of a great man. The consort

  Of a great man. Did I ever pretend to be

  A great man? There are no great men here,

  Believe me. Not even my brother. He is under orders

  More than anyone. He is thrown into that position

  Against his will. Against his will, do you understand?

  We ask very little. To build our nation. That means

  Law, law and more law. What we are doing

  Is waiting for that law to be hammered out,

  Painfully. When we have law we will have judges.

  I shall be a judge – is that great enough for you?

  Eliseba, the judge’s wife. Will that do?’

  But she said: ‘You misunderstand me. You

  Misunderstand my meaning. Ah, I am not even sure

  I understand it myself. But, let me say this:

  Once there seemed so much to look forward to.

  Now there seems to be nothing.’ – ‘Nothing?’ he cried.

  ‘Nothing to come out of Egypt a free people,

  Free, I say. Nothing the wonders, miracles?’ –

  ‘Miracles,’ Eliseba echoed. ‘Or is it trickery?

  There are some who are saying it was trickery,

  His trickery. That he knew a strong wind

  Would blow back the waters. It’s happened before, they say.

  And the water in those rocks, and the quails, the manna.

  Cunning, clever – but it was all supposed to be

  The power of this God. His God. And where is this God?’ –

  ‘You forget,’ said Aaron wearily, ‘the miracles in Egypt.

  God was in those, God is in everything –

  In the strength of the wind and the lightning and the sea.

  And now he talks to my own brother, gives him the law,

  Makes a covenant with our people. Beware,

  Beware of blasphemy, woman.’ Eliseba, unabashed,

  Said: ‘You say that to everyone. And now you say it

  To your own wife. Blasphemy blasphemy blasphemy.

  But what I say is this: What comes next?

  We move on to some other place full of sheep,

  After General Joshua has kindly won more battles for us,

  And then we obey the law, smelling of sheep-dung.

  Is that life?’ Aaron said: ‘We are the builders.

  We are the beginne
rs. We will make kingdoms

  Greater than Egypt when the time comes. But

  That time is not yet.’ And Eliseba answered:

  ‘We will look up at the sky, pretending we see

  A God who is not really there – who only lives

  In the mind of your brother Moses. Have you ever thought

  That your brother may be mad – that he’ll starve to death

  Up there, brooding on his God? And that we have to wait

  While he starves to death or wanders away on the

  Other side of the mountain, forgetting us,

  All the big promises. Not that they are so big,

  Those big promises. Looking after sheep

  And bearing children and having lots of laws

  And an invisible God grumbling all the time.’ –

  ‘I think,’ said Aaron sighing, ‘we should go to bed.’ –

  ‘Bed,’ said Eliseba. ‘Bed and work and bread

  And goat’s milk. And occasionally, if we are good,

  A song and dance from your sister Miriam. Life.

  At least in Egypt there was – ah, it is no matter.’ –

  ‘In Egypt’, Aaron cried, ‘there was misery,

  Whips and pyramids and filthy stone idols. Misery.’ –

  ‘Also’, she said, ‘baked Nile fish and palm wine.

  What are you going to do, Aaron –

  Aaron of the golden mouth, what are you going

  To do? The people are unhappy, Aaron.’

  ‘They have no right,’ he muttered, ‘to be unhappy.

  They must be patient. Patience, the great thing is patience.’ –

  ‘And where did patience,’ she said, ‘ever lead them?

  What did patience ever get them? They want to live.

  He may never come back, Aaron of the golden mouth.

  What are you going to do? This is your kingdom.’

  So she left him alone by the fire and he looked

  Bitterly after her. They want to live.

  Next day a strange thing, a new thing, though small.

  One of the idle appeared before the children

  With little figures of stone, crudely carved,

  And a crude platform of wood, and he set the figures

  Acting on that stage, lending them his voices,

  One voice a mouse-squeak, the other heavy, solemn,

  A bearded voice, which rumbled: ‘Tell them all

  That nobody is to work on the Sabbath, the Sabbath

  Being my day, my day.’ – ‘Why not give us that day

  And you have all the others? Then we should be able

  To rest nearly all the time.’ The children laughed.

  ‘Because’, in thunder, ‘I tell you. And you tell them

  That if they do wrong I will punish them, punish them.’ –

  ‘How will you punish them?’ – ‘I’ll swoop down from on high

  Like a mountain-lion. I’ll crash like a thunderbolt.’

  And one of the bolder children grasped the God-effigy

  And chased the weak with it, crying: ‘Go on,

  On your knees, bow down, bow down or I will

  Clout you on the head.’ And a sickly child,

  Grinning, abased himself to joyful laughter.

  But then a voice of true anger, Koreh’s crying:

  ‘Stop! Stop that!’ Surprised by unabashed,

  The puppeteer and the children: what wrong had they done?

  Here came some official spoilsport. Koreh said:

  ‘You know the law. You know that there is to be no

  Worshipping of graven images. And that means also

  The pretence of worshipping –’ The puppeteer cried back:

  ‘Are there to be no children’s games then any more?’ –

  ‘I admit,’ admitted Koreh, ‘that the line is

  Hard to draw. It will be drawn firmly when

  He comes down. Meanwhile remember

  What you have already been taught that there is

  Danger even in children’s play.’ And he took the

  Crude God of stone and hurled it, hurled it,

  And the children looked at him with open mouths.

  The law was a problem everywhere, on every level,

  As Aaron found with the thieves arraigned before him,

  Saying, calmly, clearly: ‘I am saying

  Not that you stole as men steal in the

  General way, the old way – from other men,

  From this man or from that man – do you follow me? –

  But that you stole from us all. The gold and silver

  And jewels that the Egyptians gave to us,

  Gave us to go away – do you follow me? –

  Are the wealth not of one man, of one family,

  Of one tribe, but of the entire people,

  Of what we now call Israel.’ And the first thief,

  Wall-eyed and hulking, said: ‘What you’re saying then

  Is that we stole from ourselves. But how can people

  Steal from themselves? Answer me that.’ And Aaron:

  ‘Listen carefully. Listen. A whole nation

  Can own a thing in common – do you follow me?

  Perhaps some public monument, some statue – ’

  ‘Some god, you mean?’ said thief, a youth

  Golden, angelic. And Aaron: ‘I did not say that.

  Some fine piece of craftsman’s work, shall we say,

  That is set up in a public place, that would be

  Seen and enjoyed by the whole people. It would be theft

  For one man or three men to remove it. Now do you

  Follow me?’ But the first thief said: ‘That gold,

  Silver and stuff was shut away in a wagon,

  And not very well guarded, if I may say so.

  Anybody could have taken some, but it happened to be

  Us. And it happened that one of these Midianites

  Didn’t keep his mouth shut.’ Aaron turned to Caleb:

  ‘Not very well guarded, do you hear?’ And to the thieves:

  ‘What have the Midianites to do with it?’ The third thief said,

  An upright clipped man, like a warrior:

  ‘They wanted to sell us palm-wine. As for us,

  We wanted to buy it. We had nothing to buy it with.

  Except sheep. But they said they had plenty of those.’ –

  ‘I see,’ sighed Aaron. ‘Caleb, sequester the palm-wine.

  It belongs to the community. There may some time

  Be occasion to celebrate something. As for you three – ’

  And then he cried out in impotence: ‘Punishment, punishment –

  What punishment can we give? By rights you should each

  Have a hand cut off at the wrist. But who would be so

  Foul as to order such bloody execution

  And who so depraved as to do it? Nor can you be

  Cast into prison. We are not a township –

  We have no prisons. Throw you back to the wilderness?

  That would be death, and theft hardly warrants it.

  All I can say is that you must abide the

  Coming of the covenant, the return of the

  Ordained lawgiver. Be warned. You are free to go.’

  So they went, and the voice of the clipped and upright

  Warrior-looking thief could be heard some way off,

  Mimicking Aaron, while the others laughed.

  ‘If I may speak,’ said Caleb – ‘Speak by all means,’

  Aaron said, and Caleb: ‘We have here a nation

  Of town-dwellers who have almost forgotten

  That their forebears were herdsmen. It is hard to turn them so quickly

  Into tenders of sheep again. They think of enslaving Egypt

  As a land of fair cities. What have they, after all, here?

  Goat’s cheese and sheep-fat, and that useless glittering hoard

  Out of a fair land of fine craft and
richness.

  Melt it down.’ And Aaron started at that.

  ‘Melt it down,’ said Caleb. ‘We have men here wasted –

  Men who have learned the crafts of smith and carver,

  Brought down here to be mere shepherds. Melt the gold

  And melt the silver and give them work to do.

  Some effigy of skill and beauty that shall

  Stand in the midst of the encampment. Some symbol of

  The unity of the people.’ Aaron shook his head:

  ‘But this is no time for that. We are still waiting

  To go to the lands we are promised, there to build our

  Cities and fill them full of the craftsman’s work.

  This is a time between times, it is not yet

  Even an era of making. Except for the law,

  The law comes first. We build first with law

  And then out of stone and marble and metal.’ –

  ‘A very long time of waiting,’ Caleb said.

  To many it feels that this is to be their life.

  A life full of toil with nothing at all to look at

  Save that sky and that mountain. He has been

  A long time up that mountain. If, of course, he is

  Still there.’ Glumly, both looked up

  At the mountain. If he is still there.

  ‘Even he said that,’ said Aaron to Eliseba,

  The following dawn, as they lay hearing the cock crow

  And smelt the baking of bread. ‘Even Caleb.

  The people are wavering, full of doubt. Some of them

  Talk with regret of leaving Egypt. They forget so quickly.

  They forget Moses. If he is still there, he said.’ –

  ‘Whether he is there or not,’ Eliseba replied,

  ‘You are here, you. The time is come, I think,

  For you to rule.’ – ‘I do what I can’, said Aaron. –

  ‘And what you can do is to say either no or wait.

  No more. Have they been asking you for gods?’ –

  ‘For what?’ Aaron was startled. ‘For gods, gods,’

  She said. ‘Not some big bearded father

  Up the mountain or in the sky. Gods such as

  The Egyptians have. Gods they can touch and speak to

  And chide and beat if they do not behave well.’ –

  They are ‘fools’, Aaron said. ‘They do not realise

  How far we have come. We, of all the people of the earth,

  Know what God is. Not gods – God –

  The one containing the many. It is staggering.

  Too staggering. Yes, they have been asking for

  Gods.’ – ‘And what,’ said Eliseba, ‘do you say to them?

  Wait, I will tell you. You thunder and use big words.