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On Psalms
113-118
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Poems for
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Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon
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When Yisrael came reeling from the ashes
To settle in this foreign promised land,
Return to Babel, squeezed among the voices
That blundered into English by and by,
The rivers of Manhattan, being tidal,
Reversed, and then reversed, as is their way.
For here there is no joy but in the heart,
No answering reflection of our passion.
The lilt of grass in spring is our own song;
The majesty of mountains, our own poem;
The promise to our ancestors, a myth;
The land of our redemption, the whole earth.
O love, that mingles all in one profusion,
Free at last to rendezvous at will!
As dogs of different breeds become the Ur-dog
That silent slipped into the caveman's camp,
So will we in America return
To those lost tribes who left our ancient home.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.
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