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SONATINA TO THE SABBATH
by Thomas McElwain
1. Andante
You were a princess then
With a four-day-old moon shining on your bosom
Like a raw wedge of ivory
Glowing against your black velvet dress.
The black dress always made you look so beautiful.
That's why you put it on that first night
When the chill darkness came creeping
For the first time
Around poor Eve's naked shoulders.
You thought the velvet warm and dark
Would be a comfort on her first night in the world,
Sabbath princess, Queen of days,
The only mother poor Eve ever had.
But she, grown woman scarcely one day old,
Could only look owl-eyed
At the big moon brooch you wore
So shiningly that first Sabbath Eve
As you came toward her in the garden,
And whimper like a sleepy child
When you took her in your arms
And for the first time held her
To your breast.
2. Adagio
For more than forty years I've seen you come
Each week and without fail
Light up the Sabbath candles on the sky,
The shade of sunset in the west
And its reflection against the face of dawn.
For forty years I've known the Sabbath coming on.
I've seen you pause in green and silver skirts
And calm your laughter so
You may pray blessings on the lights,
On peaceful Sabbath days and quiet nights.
I've seen your brown and freckled hands
Divide the braided loaf
To feed my eager soul week after week,
And heard, almost, your barely parting lips
Begin to speak.
The fragrance of your wine tiptoes
About the table almost bare,
About the room once fairy-land grown pale
By contrast now that you are there,
One hand to cheek and one to hip,
To find me almost drunk with love before I sip.
3. Allegro Vivace
As I sing the forty Psalms
At your arrival, Sabbath Eve,
Sounds overprinting in safe, straight frames
The kaleidoscopic week,
The tinseled, shattered colors disappear.
Instead
I see the brown straight feet of David the King,
Dancing in the streets of Jerusalem
With all the servant-girls in the city
Laughing and shouting, running out
Just for the holiday--
Yes, the brown straight feet of David.
Instead
I see the eyes of David, laughing and dancing,
Running out just to find you
Among the crowds of girls on the Jerusalem streets,
Always remembering you on the days when
You are not dancing under the sun of Jerusalem,
Always looking for you, with laughing, dancing
Eyes around the corners of the crooked
Streets of Jerusalem.
Instead I see the dark,
Jealous eyes of Michal following the brown
Straight feet of David, following the laughing,
Dancing eyes of David, like the eyes
Of all the servant girls in Jerusalem
Running out just for the holiday,
Dancing about just for the Sabbath Day.
As I sing the forty Psalms
At your arrival, Sabbath Eve,
I see the frozen, dead eyes of Michal
And her spittle shining like a diamond
On the street.