"IN A STRANGE LAND?"

Si oblitus fuero tui... (Psalm 137)
Beside the streams of Babylon
they broke their zither-strings, and wept;
from his Icarian island, John
saw their new City, narcolept.
But not in tears, nor while we slept,
was our more jewelled Zion built,
before the sigils were undone, 
before the vials had been spilt.

To dream in exile, to awake
unmade from an apocalypse,
may cause more subtle strings to break
than tremble under finger-tips:
set as a seal on heart and lips,
names for diaspora withhold
what memories and visions make
or rainbow, sardonyx, or gold.

If I forget thee...? We shall not,
until our last and coldest grief
is to remember we forgot - 
shut broken windows on the thief,
or bathe too late the withered leaf.
O quanta qualia...? But for these,
our coronets are bergamot,
our palaces the willow-trees.