Around 23 BC
Burn me down and watch me rise.—James Goldberg, “Phoenix Song”
i. The Crowd
Like turbulent water channeled downhill,
the early crowds press
towards the marketplace
with the racket of tossed-up boulders
and splintering trees:
night and day the clamor of the city,
the city of pity,
of temple and judgement seats
and pitiless rackets,
of mighty lineages
and bad seed,
that great and beautiful
that bloody-minded Zarahemla.
Atop a tower that rises
from a garden on the street,
a walled garden whose gate
opens to the street,
a man stands and somehow hears
the roar of voices
tell ’em I got to have my vig
five big ones plus the vig
the lips-to-ear whispers
bud, when I pay a judge,
it’s to own not lease
the roar of voices
if you don’t help me
I’ll never make the nut, man,
there’s handless people
all over Z-town
who couldn’t make the nut
the whispers lips-to-ear
the knife’s up my sleeve,
where’s the drop?
From his tower Nephi sees:
not his prospective dinner guests
(slumped-over drunks nibbled by rats)
nor the friends he visits in the evening
(ancient beggars legless from the wars)
nor those whose labors he blesses in his prayers
(men and women leaning into tumplines,
their backs bent under cages full of birds,
skins full of mezcal, baskets of amaranth)
but the folk who walk stately and slow
on shoes that lift them out of the mire
to keep unspotted the skirts of their robes,
who hold their heads up stiff and high
under top hats and bonnets
heavy with currency: polished beads of jade,
cacao beans and sea salt artfully wrapped
in bags of cloth dyed blood-red with cochineal
to which they’ve pinned the key fob of a Porsche,
green quetzal feathers.
He sees the leaders, the backroom influencers,
the frontmen, their heads high and steady, necks
stiff with honor, unable to bow or nod
lest their dignity should slip and touch
the common dirt.
He senses from his tower
the crowd’s immense reservoir
of energy, its potential to be jolted
into rumor and panic, powered
by its own size
into bolts to strike down order, to topple
the tree of church and state,
even the tree of life, too beautiful
to be called beautiful—if human lightning
could reach so far.
Nephi sees their market of coveted things:
nothing not for sale, barter, extortion,
or swindle, nothing that cannot
be smuggled, counterfeited,
stolen, or falsified:
peccary for pork
the jaguarundi’s hide,
flesh, and living body
ringtailed coatimundi for pet,
for green feathers
the parrot and parrotlet
oropendolas and motmots,
the toucan and macaw,
and the deadly bocaracá
garments of spun kapok
silkier than silk; henequen
as fine-twined as linen,
ancient lineages, a blank
left for the buyer’s name and rank,
ordination to holy offices
for cash in hand and secret promises
clay caimans on wheels
that fly across the plaza,
children shrieking with delight
while the men make deals—
women and children for the buyers’
service and pleasure
certainly not for a remaindered
old Book of Jacob—
that embattled man whose writing (they say) drags
like the time that passed away
for his lonesome and solemn people,
lives vaporized like dreams,
outcasts and wanderers
who waited for the Messiah
and mourned out their days.
Better to spend and gossip and plot.
Better to drink agave and forget.
Better to hate others than loathe yourself.
The man on the tower sees them—the dead
who don’t know it, the soon-to-be dead
who don’t know it. He mourns.
ii. Nephi’s Prayer
Day and night my tears have been my bread.
—Psalms 42:3
Your prophet is downhearted,
O Zarahemla in the morning!
Up north he prophesied,
but they heckled and spat, denied
and mocked the word and boxed his ears
hard: mission failure.
Alone he climbs his tower
that rises over the streets
of Zarahemla in the morning
where the Tout Z goes.
He sees them in their finery
brighter than orioles
processing down the street
to barter a judgment-seat
at the break of Z-town’s morning.
They sell favors, ignore
the pleadings of the poor, suborn
lies against the just,
but for a price they free
the guilty. They grease palms,
groom their children and pimp
their women. They envy, lie, and kill
in worship of their will,
O Zarahemla in deep mourning.
His heart swells with sorrow:
“If I had lived my days
when Lehi’s people came
into this land singing praises,
I’d have joyed with them
with Zarahemla in the morning,
“and found new hope in this,
the newfound promised land
like Zarahemla in the morning,
and in Jacob’s righteousness—
even in the sullen reluctance
of Laman’s obedience.
“Easy to entreat
at times, sometimes slow
to do wrong, they chose
through hardships on land and sea to hear
at last the Spirit’s warning,
O Zarahemla in the morning!
“But burdened with sorrow, I grieve
all the long night through
for Zarahemla’s squandered mornings,
for hearts hardened to stone,
numb to divine promptings, beyond
feeling. What shall I do?”
O Zarahemla in the morning,
no easy rhetoric delivers
your sinners from death to life.
Only with blood and pain
the mother’s womb gives up her child
to see her loving smile.
iii. The Prophecy
He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
—Daniel 2:22
The sun has burned off the river mist
revealing Nephi on the tower, bowing
to the ground and praying.
Someone runs and tells the people—
someone always runs and tells.
The crowd flows like water into a ditch.
“Has someone died in Nephi’s house?”
“He’s certainly making a fine display.”
“Ooh! Let’s leave, the sun is burning.”
”I’ve better ways to spend the day.”
Nephi looks over the multitude
as he rises from prayer.
“Why do you gather here—
that I may tell you of your sins?
I have climbed my tower,
to sorrow for those sins.
“You gaze at me and wonder,
instead you ought to marvel
at how cheaply you have sold
yourselves to the devil,
at how deeply his long teeth bite
into the flesh of your heart,
“at how quickly he will spit
you into the dark.
You have bartered the love of God
for power and wealth. You weep,
not when you sin, but when
your money sleeps.
“He would have gathered you, His lambs,
the dear ones of His flock.
He would have held you in his arms
and rocked you like a child.
But he shall scatter you like raw
meat tossed to the dogs.”
A gasp in the crowd. “My God! The man’s
lightheaded on his steeple.
Who ever heard of prophets
reviling their own people?”
“You wound the city from within:
you envy, murder, steal
and lie about your neighbor.
Go, weep for your sins as God weeps.
It is He, not I,
who knows how you will die.”
This is how Wisdom cries out,
how she broadcasts her voice:
standing at the apex of high places.
At the garden gates,
at the entry to the market,
at the coming in at the doors, she cries.
iv. The Multitude
And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way
towards that great and spacious building.
—1 Nephi 8:31
Some shrug their shoulders and walk away.
It’s not the sort of thing they buy.
Some wonder, “What’s his game?”
Pickpockets and process-servers work the crowd.
Some shout, “What right’s he got to talk that way,
some almighty damned aristo looking down
his Nephite nose at us? We’re good as him.”
Others whisper, “What’ve we got on him?
Do you know his price?” These are the pimps
and brokers, the judges, the spinners, the muscle
who belong to the secret band of murderers,
the Gadiosi. They cry out to the crowd,
“Why not seize and hogtie this lout
and bring him forth to be condemned
for slandering the law and this good people?”
(Delegation’s their virtue, the mob their congregation.)
“If you don’t have the balls, we swear we will.
Seize him, bind him, bring him to us!
“He says we’ll be obliterated,
but enemies are frightened of our boys.
We are powerful, our cities great,
progressive and sophisticated.
When were so many so very happy?
Moralists are silenced by our joy.
Our great causes busy little souls.
Seize him, bind him, bring him to us!
“No one’s poor who doesn’t want to be:
new construction’s rising everywhere.
Ezroms of silver, seons of gold
from kickbacks, bribes, and lotteries
flow hand to sticky hand, as sweet
to lick from fingers as Melipona honey.
Seize him, bind him, bring him to us!”
A few cry: “If our hearts were polished glass,
he could not see them clearer. Let him alone.
He must be good: since he knows our sins—
though swaddled in blood oaths and in silence—
he must know too what will come to pass.
Hear his words; they cut to the bone.”
v. The Poor
Thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out
and have been despised by mine enemies.
—Zenos, in Alma 33:10
Pushed to the outside by the crowd,
poor Lamanites are singing:
O Nephites can’t you rise and tell
(I’m laying down my load)
Jesus will love us well.
Lay down your load.
Hell is deep and dark despair
(I’m laying down my load),
Sinner, don’t go there.
Lay down your load.
The faithful scattered through the town
keep it from going down,
though mocked as dim and born to plod—
the peckerwood in tatters
who bows to the ground
trusting his prayer matters,
the woman in a cheap print dress
who naively believes in God
and offers Him her best.
vi. Nephi Confronts the Multitude
[The Lord] led thee through that great and terrible
wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions,
and drought, where there was no water.
—Deuteronomy 8:15
As after a gale-force wind, when quiet falls
over the fields—no bird sings or calls,
no animal cries—the crowd is silenced
by the reverent few, and Nephi speaks again.
“If God gave Moses—a man no more
than dust and breath, like us—
a measure of his power,
why not entrust
me with a vision of His judgment
on the unrepentant?”
He opens a story they’ve heard before,
Mama to child told in the scary night,
of the old time when their people
in the blazing desert wandered, before
I was born, child, before your saba,
before our Father Lehi, when fiery snakes
flew into the camp biting and killing.
“Moses lifted up, before the people,
a bronze snake on a staff
and cried, for the healing
of your bodies, look up and live.
Some, refusing to believe
this simple thing, this simple
look and live, would not obey,
but turned their eyes away,
and came to grief:
“So will the Son of God be lifted up.
And those who love
and sacrifice to Him their willful hearts,
will lift their eyes upon Him and receive
His healing love.”
vii. Let P = Prophet: The Form of Nephi’s Argument
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square.
—Proverbs 1:20
Let P predict A, an event both tragic and unlikely—
the destruction of a great and imposing city,
prediction that fills the imagination and troubles the heart
and moves the crowd to pick up stones and throw—
and let A prove true:
if then P should predict B, even less likely but more glorious—
the coming of God’s son to heal the wounds of A
and every other injury inflicted by the world—
though skeptics argue the future is unknowable,
sin and redemption a fool’s illusions—
should we not admit its possibility?
For it is the possibility of joy, the joy of Abraham
and of Moses and of all those who saw His coming.
And let the proof of A be ourselves, for we know our ancestors
fled a falling city and now, in us, hear and debate—
though skeptics say it did not happen that way,
or if it happened, it does not matter,
for history is but noise we change to signal,
the tic-toc of our minds.
The proof of B is in our hearts, for the Spirit speaks its truth.
All we have learned from hearing the prophets
and from watching our parents,
all we have observed on earth and in the heavens
witness that Nephi’s words, let them equal A and B,
are true.
Let C be how he depicts our corruption and wickedness
and let its proof be the moment of recognition,
when we know at last who we are
and who we have become
and what and whom we sell out without compunction.
And let D become contrition for C,
for love withheld, the poor starved, covenants neglected,
our prayer for deliverance before the city falls.
Let E be the Kingdom of God, where we are saved:
let D to the power of B cancel C
and let them equal E.
Contrition is powered by grace,
for God will keep His promise.
Let the feet of faith find the straight path back to Him
as we love our neighbor and serve our Lord.
The crowd, self-beguiling, self-policing, cries
faith is the refuge of the weak, hope a shelter
of outspread fingers overhead in a downpour.
The crowd does not reason; it accumulates
stupidity; it envies and hates.
Let crowd equal world.
But Nephi is calling
each of us out of the world, back to ourselves,
toward our God, back from the edge of falling:
So let it be. Amen.
viii. The Second Prophecy
If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
—Genesis 4:7
Now the people, the skeptics and cynics,
Nephi doses with A1 as with a tonic:
“And seeing you know these things,
but have denied them and become liars,
rejected them and become sinners,
you are fallen fruit ripening in the sun:
flies swarm and alight on you; an angry finger
could pierce your bruised and rotting flesh,
and yet you will not turn.
Destruction is on your threshold.
Go to the judgement seat, and search.
Your judge is murdered,
Seezoram is lying in his blood,
Gadioso slain by Gadioso.
Go now, and prove me wrong.”
ix. Nephi’s Certainty
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called
unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
—Revelations 19:9
He knows this certainly, for the Word
has suddenly come to him:
history is God’s daughter
and He braids her hair
from innumerable strands.
She thinks it’s the wind blowing
her tresses into a frightful tangle,
and cries out, what can be done
but pull it out by the roots?
Yet it comes right
at the exact moment it needs to come right—
hair pulled back from the face
into a modest bun
showing eyes red with pain
at the crucifixion
when all the strands are brought together:
Son, behold thy mother;
as it will come right
at the exact moment it must come right
when the tablecloths are spread,
the tables laden with choicest foods,
and the joyous guests arrive
at the feast planned from the beginning,
when the bridegroom, quiet as a thief, approaches,
and the bride, radiant as the sun, comes out,
every strand plaited, each in its place,
la tresse Africaine woven
with blood-red ribbons.
From the agency of the righteous
and choices of the sinner,
from the iron bands of law
and chaos tangled lines
God weaves times and places
that the man of God with certainty can say,
“Go, and find the chief judge murdered.”
“Go!” cry the crooked judges.
Five in the crowd already running.
x. “There Were Five Who Went”
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
—John 15:16
Why did they run—these five and not five others?
First was a boy from Amnihu.
“I have dreamed a dream,” his mother said.
“In a dark place, I was walking blindly,
sometimes on land rising so steeply, I fell
to hands and feet; sometimes descending so steeply,
I slipped and slid and tumbled.
A pale moon showed the shapes moving about me
like maggots in a capybara’s foot:
horses and riders falling into the abyss;
children thrown from the mountain by their mothers;
dead infants mouth to breast.
I heard a voice whispering in the darkness:
‘Some I have burned with fire,
Some I have sunk into the sea.’
Go, son, to Zarahemla and seek the interpretation.”
And with him, from war-racked Cumeni
a survivor;
from the plains of Nephihah
the fastest runner;
from Bountiful near Desolation,
bipolar and anxious, a man in search of relief;
from Z-town, a mendicant
poor in purse and heart:
they run in their might to the judgment-seat
and see the chief judge lying in his blood.
(A crime scene. Where’s the chalk outline? the yellow tape?)
Astonished, they fall to earth,
for they did not believe Nephi’s words.
Why did they run?
But now they see and believe,
and they are afraid
that all the judgments Nephi has predicted
A if not D
will come upon the people;
they quake and fall.
xi. The Cry of Murder
The voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands,
saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.
—Jeremiah 4:31
A judge is killed, the slayer flees,
the servants raise the cry of murder
(body and blood: reasonable assumption)
and the people, gathering at the judgment-seat,
see five men fallen to earth
like trees flattened after a storm,
the ones who went from the market
running—skeptics, doubters, unbelievers,
but willing to go, eager to run,
desiring to know the truth despite themselves,
like Peter and John in their footrace to the tomb,
willing to believe in their disbelief.
The people answer the cry of murder,
eager to blame, easy to panic, ignorant
of context, ignorant of that other crowd
that had catcalled and sneered at the prophet
and sent the five men running—this crowd
say among themselves, first in a whisper,
then a shout: “These men have murdered
the judge, but God struck them down.”
(Reasonable assumption? Where is the blood
on their clothing? Where is the weapon?)
The crowd grabs them, the men
who went, patsies, the fall guys—for guilt
is a parasite that must have blood,
and a crowd judges quicker than the Lord.
They bind the five and throw them in the clink.
The Chief Judge Killed! is hawked in the street,
in the market it passes lip to lip,
ear-bait for the bored.
xii. Nephi Accused
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
—Job 12:17
Rivers of fasting mourners and the curious flow
to the burial of the judge.
(Friend, this is our third crowd, our second bout of mourning;
with five sent by the judges, five
accused of murder, and one sent by the Creator
to those with unclean lips and hands.)
The Tout Z’s here, the loafers and the fashionable
(but where is the dead man’s brother?),
among them the judges assembled at Nephi’s tower
who resisted the prophet’s words.
“Where are the five we sent?” they ask. The crowd says, “No clue,
though there were five, the murderers,
we’ve locked in the calaboose.” “Then bring them here.” The ten
resolve into the five we’ve met—
the war survivor, familiar with death; the runner
who when he saw the dead judge cried;
the boy whose visionary mother saw the judge’s
body and many more; oddly
at peace for once, the bipolar merchant; the local
toothless beggar, once beautiful
before grief and age and poverty took all she had.
Lit by a subtle glow, they speak:
“I ran to the judgment-seat and saw the bloody scene.”
“I fainted with astonishment
and came to in the jail.” “I do not know who did it.”
“I do know this: we ran, as you
asked, and found the man dead.” “We all believe in Nephi.”
The judges twist their words against Nephi: “What other
proof is needed? He has conspired
to murder our chief, to amaze us with predictions
(a trick we should try ourselves) and
convert us to his faith as if God had chosen him:
“we will find him out—we have our ways, snitches and spies,
cigarette ash and typewriter
keys, bribery and torture—infallible techniques
to discover truth” (inventing
it, they mean—it’s their finest product): “we will make him
rat out his co-conspirators.”
The five rebuke the judges. (From where do these souls draw
the confidence that makes them bold?)
Though the judges have no answer for their impudence,
still they have Nephi seized while he
sits with his family reading the words of Jacob
and have him bound and brought to them, to be forced or bought:
“You are a conspirator”—all
is conspiracy to those who practice it—”finger
the killer and cop a plea, you’ll
get the reward—here’s a hefty purse—and walk out free.
You could do worse. Let’s cut a deal.”
Nephi scoffs: “Begin to howl and mourn. Disaster waits
over the next rise, round the next
bend, unless you turn away from wickedness. You think
my knowledge, like yours, is tainted
with conspiracy. But this is my witness: I know
your wickedness. You wanted signs,
“I gave you a sign, and now you make yourselves angry.
Here is another, but can you
use it against me? Go to the house of Seantum,
brother of the judge, and ask, ‘Has
Nephi, the pretended prophet of catastrophes,
conspired to kill your brother?’ ‘No.’
“‘Did you kill your brother?’ Afraid, he will not know what
to say, but will deny, will claim
innocence, temporize. Examine him: you will find
blood on the hem of his garment.
‘Have you been at sacrifice? Is this your brother’s blood?’
“His lies exhausted, he will quake and turn pale, as if
already dying. You will say:
‘Your fear and your pallor confess your guilt.’ Panicking,
he will not deny his evil,
but all I knew, he will admit, is what God revealed.
You will know I am sent from God,
honest, a truth teller, and you will fear for your soul.”
They go and do as Nephi directs.
The words of his mouth prove true:
according to his words Seantum denies;
according to his words Seantum confesses.
The five that went are freed, and Nephi, too.
xiii. Nephi Alone
And he said unto me: What desirest thou?
—1 Nephi 11:10
Life is too hard. Self-beguiled and self-
esteeming, we can stand only a taste.
Only a few believe Nephi, a few more
the five who converted in jail and
escaped their self-built prisons
through the straight gate
by the narrow way
that leads to
life.
Others concede Nephi is a prophet
but go back to their ordinary lives.
Still others: “He is a god. How else could he know
the thoughts of our hearts, the murderer of our judge?”
But they go back to their ordinary lives.
This way and that the people divide
and go their own ways,
leaving the faithful servant, Nephi,
alone in the midst of them
to find his way forward, just as the waters
of the Red Sea parted
hither and thither to let Israel through:
he is a man like Moses.
But something is about to happen,
a change is preparing
in the mind of the Almighty,
decisions are being made
in His heavenly council.
The doorposts of the heavenly temple shake,
the house is filled with smoke:
let them not destroy themselves in battle,
let famine be their enemy
and rain that does not rain
and grain that does not grow in the season of grain
till they repent,
till they call on the Lord
to come forth as sure as the morning,
to come to them as the rain,
till they return love for His lovingkindness.
So the word of the Lord comes to Nephi
like the light that, glancing off the Sidon,
pierces his eye
on the windy corner of the dirty street:
if you command this mountain,
throw yourself down
till you become a plain;
if you command this mountain,
lie flat as a four-lane
across miles of level ground;
if you command this mountain,
it will throw itself down—
but people can be deader than dry bone,
their hearts like flint,
unfeeling as mountain stone.
People can be deader than dry bone,
self-exalted on a peacock throne
unwilling to be humble and repent.
Say to the people deader than dry bone,
whose hearts are flint:
until you repent,
until you call on the Lord
to come to them as the rain,
to come forth as sure as the morning,
until you return love for His lovingkindness:
He will stop the rain from raining.
He will stop the grain from growing in the season of grain.
Famine will strike you down
lest you destroy your souls with shedding blood.
xiv. Benediction of Light
The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all
the inward parts of his being.
—Proverbs 20:27
Dear Light, from the Creator’s face
you fill the immensity of space.
To all things You are the law
and life, the power that made them all
and makes for each a place.
In You the rabbit runs, the fox gives chase.
By You we judge the righteous from the base.
You show our virtues, tics, and flaws,
dear Light,
and show us to the path of grace.
You are the beauty of our days—
the snowpack trickling in the thaw,
the leaf as red as Christ’s blood in the fall—
that neither grief nor failure can efface,
dear Light:
Now shine in our minds,
though darkened by sin’s shadow;
plant eyes in our souls
to see with the Lord’s eyes,
that we may do as Nephi did,
who came down from his tower
not blinded or silenced by fear,
willing to be a fool before our God,
that we may do as He commands,
pledging to Him, by covenants,
the energy of our desires,
the work of penitent minds and hands,
that we, too, may witness and sacrifice
as long as hope and love require.
* * * * *
Notes
* * * * *
J.S. Absher is a poet and independent scholar. His second full-length book of poetry, Skating Rough Ground, was published in May 2022 by Kelsay Press. Mouth Work (St. Andrews University Press) won the 2015 Lena Shull Book Contest from the North Carolina Poetry Society. In the past few years, his poems have won awards from BYU Studies Quarterly and Dialogue and have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize.
Introduction
by Michael R. Collings
Emma’s Crown
by Makoto Hunter
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
by Steven L. Peck
Eight Days
by Mark D. Bennion
Nephi on the Tower
by J.S. Absher
Song of the Salt Sea
by James Goldberg
Talking to Dante in the Spirit World
by Daniel Cooper
The Deacon and the Dragon
by Theric Jepson
The Tree of God’s Own Love: A Poetic Retelling of the Vision of the Tree of Life
by Bruce T. Forbes
