And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide:
and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold …
GENESIS 24:63*

You remember, oh Isaac, the face of the bride

From the Genesis foothills of dreaming’s beginning

Arriving with dusk as the sunset was bringing

The camel-bells music, the end of the ride?

The nomadic return of a hope that had died

Like a riverbed flooding and suddenly greening

A promise fulfilled, flowing into the evening

The song and the rhythm of life undenied…

I remember the landscapes, the names, the dark faces

A golden Havilah of biblical places

the handclapping chants overcoding a mystery.

Timeless recurrence; eternity imminent

Israelite graves I beheld on that continent;

Songs of Rebecca: the morning of history.