“Comfort me with ginseng—with sacraments/of a youthful wine-flushed god,/naked and beautiful, chanting a lecher’s lament.”
For all night long I dreamed of you:
I woke and prayed against my will,
Then slept to dream of you again.
— Christina Rossetti
The first night that I dreamed of you,
I took a flight to Palestine
where I talked with Arabs and with Jews,
yet dared look no man in the eye.
I walked right past my embassy
(I felt no love, I felt no pride)
then past the rest of Tel Aviv.
And all throughout the consulate halls,
men abetted war when they cried, “Peace!”
My feet approached the Wailing Wall—
my hand outstretched, my head bowed low,
my lips invoking Babel’s fall.
I saw no mosques with golden domes,
no soaring spires, no synagogues,
nor even Herod’s porticos…
For I was touching you, and not
the sacred wall. You beckoned me,
and by your rivered Babylon,
there I laid down. Your waters I
called home, your lips I called my Zion;
I shook with newfound ecstasy
when liquid myrrh began to run.
The next night that I dreamed of you,
I clutched the cup and drained the Blood.
Archangels thundered at the pews;
the air was thick with heavy scents
of myrrh and frankincense diffused.
Comfort me with ginseng—with sacraments
of a youthful wine-flushed god,
naked and beautiful, chanting a lecher’s lament.
I come to you with bloodied hands
and muddied feet…past hallowed grounds
of burning brush to a faith-forsaken land.
Shannon Winestone is a poet and the founder and editor of The New Stylus. She admires poetry that is well-crafted, transcendent, and full of emotive power. Her work has appeared in The Raven Review, The HyperTexts, and Ephemeral Elegies.
