The Hidden Ones

In those years the best disguised Themselves and went into exile. They wandered from village To village, looking for degradation.

Exile was their answer to any question, Any need ? to be hidden, to sleep In root cellars, to mingle Their great learning with straw.

Who knew? Maybe the straw Would catch fire, like the dry field An ancient one glanced at when he left His cave, after weeks of fasting.

Even the animals were wary. Who could say a crow Was a crow, a cow a cow? No one told his own story. But that was the whole point, To hold back, to sleep on straw. And of course, somehow the stories Would all be known ? how this hidden one

Fell off a radish cart into a ditch, Beaten by the driver, how humility Cushioned the blows, how another, With happy tears, accepted grave accusations,

How a great wedding party danced Around him, with his hands bound, His face in the dirt, how they mocked And kicked up stones even as he exulted ?

For at last he brought happiness. At last the bridegroom turned to smile At the bride. And when he was unmasked, Wouldn’t that too be happiness?

Hadn’t he rehearsed it all, even The shame, especially the shame? Didn’t he know, as all the hidden ones did, That a candle burned for him still

In a windowless room, sucking At the air, almost choking on it? How could he help but smile As the villagers hoisted him up By a tree branch over the river, Pelted him with apple cores. He was hungry, thank God, and the apple Smell would fill his head.

He’d think of that closed room And its smell of wax, how he’d steal Back one night, full of shame, Sit down beside his books, take

His meals again through a slot In the door. No one would ever know. They wouldn’t need to. And wasn’t that the whole point?

But, of course, somehow they would know. They would see it when he rubbed His hands together and the soft veins Stood out, or when he shook his head Suddenly, for no reason. They would know he’d fallen From a great height, that he’d slept On straw, on dry bales of straw,

That he’d starved for days, Covering his face with soot And candle wax. They would know The straw had not caught fire.