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Rainbow Over Bamberg
" ... with great awe, and with signs, and with wonders" (Deut. 26:8)
Can promises be kept and never broken?
I watched you come out running in the rain,
American, glance up at our soft sky,
Then higher--to the giant arch of light
And color, vaporous, yet smooth, stretched tight
Beyond this planet's ends, a stellar sigh.
The red, gold, green, blue, plum, its sweet
refrain
Spelled in your heart a wondrous, riddling
token.
Was it just so the ancients thought they saw
Unearthly feet treading a sapphire dome?
And in a many-colored banner read
A whispered vow whose tones would never fade?
And yet they do--down there, where vows are made.
You didn't see me watching you from home,
But ran, eyes now on earth, now overhead.
I couldn't but feel awestruck at your awe.
I used to live there--in a different time.
It was a lovely place, until the day
Young thugs in uniform became the rage,
And neighbors shut their doors, friends hurried
past.
The kids with F's in school now had a blast,
Forcing the teacher's door--his mom's grey age,
Dragged tumbling down the stairs, made her fair
play
For kicks around the cobblestones. No crime.
We wore big badges in those days--those stars
Of one plain color--so that those who live
Next door and see us every day should know
Us finally for what we really are.
Strange thing, to read so much into a star
Of cloth--enough to read the sign below
The face, and turn your eyes away, and give
No second glance toward friends in cattle cars.
I saw you, by the way, American,
Once in Berlin, and jogging that time, too.
You paused before the synagogue--restored,
Splendid in bright red brick and gilded trim.
You pondered the inscription--David's hymn
In ancient Hebrew letters--and you pored
Over its spiky shapes between the two
Arched doorways, whose wood doors swing free
again.
A plaque thanks a policeman who, alone,
Fought the flames back when crowds of torches
burned,
One glassy-cold November night. I stood
And watched you as you took a few steps back,
Darting your eyes from gilded towers to plaque,
In awe. I made a sign, as if you could
Have known my face, but, running past, you turned
Your eyes away--fleet thing of blood and bone.
I know that you will never hear these words,
That we will never meet--and yet I say
I promise you, this rainbow that you saw
Will come again to spread across the skies,
Though, it may be, not for your living eyes.
One end will touch New York, the other draw
Past old Jerusalem, up from my day
Of darkness toward soft light, round
heavenwards.
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