Credo

A cloud of grasshoppers

rose from where we loved

and passed before the sun.

I wondered what farms

they would devour,

what slave people would go free

because of them.

I thought of pyramids overturned,

of Pharaoh hanging by the feet,

his body smeared --

Then my love drew me down

to conclude what I had begun.

Later, clusters of fern apart,

we lay.

A cloud of grasshoppers

passed between us and the moon,

going the other way,

each one fat and flying slow,

not hungry for the leaves and ferns

we rested on below.

The smell that burning cities give

was in the air.

Battalions of the wretched,

wild with holy promises,

soon passed our sleeping place;

they ran among

the ferns and grass.

I had two thoughts:

to leave my love

and join their wandering,

join their holiness;

or take my love

to the city they had fled:

That impoverished world

of boil-afflicted flesh

and rotting fields

could not tempt us from each other.

Our ordinary morning lust

claimed my body first

and made me sane.

I must not betray

the small oasis where we lie,

though only for a time.

It is good to live between

a ruined house of bondage

and a holy promised land.

A cloud of grasshoppers

will turn another Pharaoh upside-down;

slaves will build cathedrals

for other slaves to burn.

It is good to hear

the larvae rumbling underground,

good to learn

the feet of fierce or humble priests

trample out the green.