Credo

A cloud of grasshoppers rose from where we loved and passed before the sun. I wondered what farms they would devour, what slave people would go free because of them. I thought of pyramids overturned, of Pharaoh hanging by the feet, his body smeared -- Then my love drew me down to conclude what I had begun. Later, clusters of fern apart, we lay. A cloud of grasshoppers passed between us and the moon, going the other way, each one fat and flying slow, not hungry for the leaves and ferns we rested on below. The smell that burning cities give was in the air. Battalions of the wretched, wild with holy promises, soon passed our sleeping place; they ran among the ferns and grass. I had two thoughts: to leave my love and join their wandering, join their holiness; or take my love to the city they had fled: That impoverished world of boil-afflicted flesh and rotting fields could not tempt us from each other. Our ordinary morning lust claimed my body first and made me sane. I must not betray the small oasis where we lie, though only for a time. It is good to live between a ruined house of bondage and a holy promised land. A cloud of grasshoppers will turn another Pharaoh upside-down; slaves will build cathedrals for other slaves to burn. It is good to hear the larvae rumbling underground, good to learn the feet of fierce or humble priests trample out the green.