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.