Jezebel
You
know when we met
I
was a girl who loved
Baal
for his rain and sweet water
and
might love you for your youth and sweet breath.
I
was the lure brought you unknowing
to
Siddon where the sun skied mornings
above
cedar hills, making jewels
on
the crest of harbor swells.
Jezebel,
chief’s daughter,
dreaming
of many things,
but
most often of the boy
to
make my thighs quiver,
and
none of the queen who later
would
make my eyes run wet and salty.
You,
pale desert boy, came,
hooked
by my dreams,
with
hair like raven’s wings
and
prophet’s dreams of glory
and
torturer’s dreams of pain
and
a core of discontent
that
you were born a shepherd.
I
would have left my father’s hearth
to
be your shepherdess, but for
your
claim to something greater.
Our
joyful dance pleased Baal, I know,
while
you pretended grim shame before your god
who
punished you like an angry father,
whom
you yet embraced.
Were
we to approach the other now,
would
you wet your lips for this sweet Phoenician,
or
would I be target for your rage
and
angry accusations?
Do
your loins remember
my
dewy hills at dawn,
the
little rivers of our wet fertility
dampening
chest and thigh and mysteries?
Or
would you pretend to a purity
that
never pricked a gentile?
I
am reconciled that I did not defy my father,
fight
Ethbaal to love my Israelite shepherd boy.
But
I tried and tried
to
come to you and cried,
Eli,
your Jessie has come,
when
I arrived, but there was no answer.
Had
you waited for me? And misunderstood
my
absence? Cursed me for rejecting you,
as
you curse me now for turning
from
the worship of your god
who
demands more than other gods?
Now,
Ethbaal is king in Tyre
and
I am queen in Samaria
and
spread my legs for Ahab,
the
Israelite king, whom you daily damn.
I
am thus, Queen Jezebel,
the
living bond between Israel and Phoenicia,
which
you condemn,
somehow
forgetting the beauty
of
Eli and Jessie,
as
your one god does dismiss
the
beauties of the many.
Your
own voice,
which
once whispered
sweetness
in the courtyard
of
the temple of Baal and laughed
in
the sight of the sky goddess, Lady Nut,
your
voice thunders and threatens,
slanders
innocence, proclaims
dominion
for one god above all gods,
dismissing dancing and worship before many.
My
Eli, sweet tormented shepherd,
it
is not our gods who invent unkindness,
but
ourselves. This your lord, God, must know,
though
you shrill otherwise,
and
speak of a god blind to
the
pools of kindness and courage
in
foreign worshippers. How like the way
you
deny the pool of love in which
we
bathed and sung praise.
Do
you remember the hart at sunrise
leaping
our prostrate bodies?
I
crept the shadows before that dawn
and
startled when you arrived beside me.
And
when you opened your robe,
I
stepped inside your arms and
warm
wrap of cotton while we sank
to
earth, your lips sweet on mine,
your
tongue a spring of wild water
plunging
to my thirsty roots.
We
moved slowly to the late calls of night birds,
quickening
even as the owls hooted
slow
caution, finishing to the sound
of
hooves pounding, the hart
robust
and wild above us and gone.
In
the peace we found, I swear I heard
the
great heart beating and felt the
throbbing
pulse below,
just
as it might have been
on
the glorious first day.
I
said the gods are smiling and you looked
at
me and I said you are
smiling,
too, and you said, this time, yes.
Do
you have memory of this, or none?
Just
as your god of many promises
remembers
only those he wishes to keep?
Do
you remember only that
which
serves you now?
Are
you now a perfect
acolyte
of your god?
In
your zeal you are become a destroyer,
first
of earthly desire, and more besides.
Your
wish to sip the wines of a hundred kingdoms
forgotten,
your wish to sample the women
of
every prince of every port
of
the wide Phoenician sea,
lost.
Gone as though left undreamt.
Or
shriven within your heart,
consumed
in the desert heat
of
a different passion, your
service
to your one god, who
requires
devotion not in me to give.
You
denounce Ahab, whom you call
the
willing tool
of
the prostitute of Tyre.
But
Ahab leads as kings do.
I
stand not in his way. Ahab
ministers
to the myriads
who
worship whomever they will.
Ministers
to the myriads who toil,
wear
down like rocks in the stream,
who
suffer hardship of drought,
and
locust plagues,
and
children born still
and
children died young
and
lovers claimed too soon. It is Ahab
who
keeps the granaries full against famine,
Ahab
who cares for the widow,
soothes
the orphan,
Ahab
who decrees no favorite
among
the gods, who does not choose
among
the gods
of
Israelites, Ammonites, Edomites and Moabites.
And
his people praise Ahab’s forbearance,
thank
Ahab for his kindness,
while
you call Ahab sinner.
In
the King’s court, I have stood for
sandalmakers
from Ammom,
stood
for potters from Moab, saying to the King
these,
also, are your people,
there
should be no special privilege
for
the Jews.
And
the King has listened, then ruled as he would.
Ahab
is no tool of Jezebel.
But
Elijah Hanavi tells the story,
Jezebel
the prostitute from Phoenicia
twists
Ahab’s judgment and sins against
the
one god.
And
who listens?
The
Hebrew zealots listen, and the hopeless,
aching
for legends of more and better, listen,
and
those who already bear hatred,
they
listen. These have never seen the sea,
or
the natural beauty of Phoenicia’s hills,
or
the works of other men in Tyre. You
have
made cause with these men
whose
hard lives will change only as Ahab succeeds,
but
the gifts of milk and honey they are promised
are
the empty bribes of an intolerant god.
Who
will protect Israel from Assyria?
The
lord, your god, has no chariots.
Ahab’s
soldiers, Ammomites, Edomites,
Israelites,
Moabites, these are Israel’s shield.
The
soldiers of a kingdom of many customs and many faiths,
these
will protect Israel,
as
will Ahab, the king, whom you damn.
You
have riled the Hebrews.
Enough
riot through Samaria and all of Israel
to
kill all the priests of Baal. Now you flee to the Judean hills,
and
claim that Jezebel sends vengeance racing after.
But
it is I who remain behind.
I
who calm Ahab,
Ahab
who wishes to decree your death.
Seek
no vengeance, I say to Ahab.
Only
bring Elijah to explain this deed
in
your court. But, yes, Eli, I also urged
Ahab
on, saying hunt Hanavi,
he
must answer to the families
of
the lovers of other gods.
Yet
I am split in pieces.
I
am Ahab’s queen.
I
am the princess who was Eli’s love.
I
am the tears that Jessie cried
to
the sun that rose in Eli’s face
in
his wandering east.
I
am those tears springing fresh today
from
Jezebel’s eyes.
I
hear, Eli, I am to die in the street,
torn
to pieces by hungry dogs.
Is
this your curse? Does Elijah triumph here?
Will
the story of Jezebel and Ahab be told
according
to Elijah?
And
what will be the fruit that grows
from
such stories?
Shepherd
boy, know this,
Jessie
will not flee the lies and sordid tales.
I
am a chief’s daughter, Queen of Israel.
What
you decree, may come, but Jezebel does not flee.
I
remember you once had such a will
when
we loved a lifetime ago.
