Shulamit

Matthew Shoham

A.

The vineyards! Face the evening sun,
Distant peaks, sunlight shimmering
slowly dies, is gone,
South Winds come, turning here, there,
Fruited palm trees, where figs whisper;
Hawks dozing on flowered branches,
To the road, pass quickly through vineyards;
Non-return of Spring, turning back of times;
Oaks midst weeds, then enter vineyards,
Yearning, darkened soul, dreaming of multitudes
Like stars in heaven.
My breast slowly rising, quietly waiting,
See a shining moon, sad, pregnant, a secret telling:
So great our anticipation
of the coronation
of our King, our Shepard,
And vultures are deceived.
-- Welcome,
my Lord, Welcome!

B.

Welcome, my King!
Dozing and dreaming, our hearts angrily beating.
Fleeing the palace, our beloved Sovereign.
Woodland deer, frightened.

Run, my Lord, run!...silently, fly like the wind;
Beneath palmy fronds, silently awaiting,
Midst the beech trees' branches.

The King awakes -- with his seven mistresses--
His Seven Sisters,
In his gold-inlaid cedar canopy,
Shulamit the Lusty.

In vinyards nightly longing,
Savage mountain lions,
Wild bulls their mates craving, charging,
A secret place, grasshoppers midst strewn stones.

Welcome, my Lord!
Blood-red grapes, fresh figs,
Hidden, silently aroused,
Courted by firey tongues.

Intense pain of yearning, pain of silent knowing,
Its clear signature, submerged in the flowery garden,
Ardent pleasure garden.

Recount a night blaze on the eastern wall,
Temptation's apple,
Like ripe fruit blossoms,
Embalming the essence of fruitfulness.

Welcome, my Lord!
I say: there's a wise response, opposed
To the decadent South,
My King, no childish wit,
Think clear, do what's right.

Love's a riddle, an allegory in song:
Know you love's season, her mad unreason?
Night lust's sudden ripe appearing?

Wherefore pursue blazing night enchantments,
Enter the fire devouring, 'Come, O Egypt!',
E'en to silver, vineyards starry-dipped?

Ah, so much to learn, and how, my Lord perplexed,
to plumb its depths,
Just a mad, stupid beast, this mystery,
Shulamit cannot decipher.

C.

But to assume the wisdom
of age,
a flash of insight --
Be thus delivered, my Lord!
Or to assume
the great austerity of association,
With strained muscular potency --
The cruel sword cuts
the gentle, bare throat,
Temples blazing, glistening flesh,
Flesh of the breast
hangs between potency and immature weakness, --
Just a brave boy.
Mighty Shulamit, heroic prick.
As if by decree --
he falls to his knees.
Behold him -- Our King, he sleeps, a child's slumber.
Merely an object of pity, adolescent overgrown,
pained and deceived.
You are magnificent, heroic, while I am Nothing!
I am young, deceived;
by you, a ravenous vulture.
Childlike joy: tremendous power.
Our hero presses on with a mighty roar --
I listen: just a beggar boy, a mere petitioner,
Dreaming, a mother imploring the people to come
to her bosom...




Translated from Hebrew by Jerome Raymond Kraus (2008)
© Copyright Jerome Raymond Kraus (2008)