Coming to Sumer

Coming to Sumer and the tamarisks on the river

I Ezra with unsettling love

rifled the mud and wattle huts

for recent mournings

with gold leaves

and lapis lazuli beads

in the neat braids loosening from the skull

Looking through the wattles to the sun

I said

It has rained some here in this place

unless snow falls heavily in the hills

to do this

The floor was smooth with silt

and river weeds hanging gray

on the bent reeds spoke saying

Everything is even here as you can see

Firing the huts

I abandoned the unprofitable poor

unequal even in the bone

to disrespect

and casual with certainty

watched an eagle wing as I went

to king and priest

Source: Collected Poems: 1951-1971 (University of Nebraska Press, 1972)