A Mystic Psalm For the Keeper of the Vineyards

The Red Lily fulfills its outpouring
In the thread-width breadth
Of the Calligrapher’s Sacred Script
Flowing like a spider’s web
In streams across the tawny
Papyrus desert of a sheet of Coptic
Paper cordovan colored like Moses’ lips.

The Sun-darkened Roses
Bloom into a blood bouquet of Runes
Under a trembling Moon
Rising low, sloe-black
In the fullness of her carnal disquietude
As the Night comes in too soon.

Her parched and curled petals
Droop as if her face has fallen
Amid the Lion’s incensed countenance
-Whispering lyrics in tune to Ezra’s gazes.

She prays a starry Rosary heretically
With the thirty-6 lamedvodniks for beads.
A beatnik praying for a sign
Of the coming of some divinely teshuv’d messiah
Alluring the ghosts of her insomnia
Into a limpid romance of sleep.

And in his heart-wound hides the knife
Her sighs cleaved with a fine Hosanna.

The students sit in silence
Under the branches of a Mastic Tree
Devoutly awaiting the Blind Master
To begin the Lurianic Lessons
In remembrance of fair Susannah.

Fragrances of burnt amethysts
Coil and wrap themselves around
The straight plumb line angles
Of Cordovero’s golden bright statue
Like serpents winding their way
Into a Sun flaring wildly
In a blaze of her daring Hallelujahs.

At precisely the point in time
Where the Reed tip cuts the first letter
To mark the burnished line
Where the ancient tale begins
-" The tale of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.