A JEW GOES SOUTH

I stand alone
in the darkness of a mountain
bowed
before the gold-encrusted icons
whose faded martyrs of a dead millenium
watch me in hopeful silence
candles glow
and the sweet smoke of incense envelops me
like a dream


standing in shadow I feel
the sun streaming down the other side of the wall
the mustiness of dying stones
and gleaming darkly in their golden tableaux
the huge eyes of the saints
question me


why do I -
english jew on holiday under aegean skies -
so sweat with love?


my skin opens
to praise the olive and the pine
a messianic hope comes deeply alive in me


here in this sun-bleached rock
I am baptized
by heat spittle and dust
borne on the sea winds from asia minor
I am naked and adrift
God is everything


He has fled synagogue and church
where there is no nakedness, no self, no abandonment of self
on the road to damascus


but in these world-eclipsing caves
ecstatic shudder of the south
inhuman eyes burn brightly
seeing far across the sea
its glittering waves its speaking mouth