Tom and Ezra in the Wasteland

Here is what Ezra Pound once said to Tom:
“Your  poem’s ticking like a bomb,
and soon will blow up in your face,
so you will end up in disgrace,
and then there’ll be no greater wasteland!
Your poemscapes are your bad-tasteland,
a gemstone which, if it’s not polished
by me, will have to be demolished.

I will make you polyhedral,
not murdered, Tom, in a Cathedral.
Your poem’s safe, I will not wreck it:
Just think of me as Tom à Beckett!
I’ll guard your poem’s mystery,
for you’ll go down in history
a  D.O.A., unetherized,
unless by me you’re authorized.
Do as I say and you’ll be saved!”

He gave attention that Tom craved,
attention that all poets crave,
which lasts, at least, until the grave,
and to eternity, perhaps,
for some bardonic poet chaps.
Though some may claim fame’s not the spur,
I’ve never known it to deter,
an incentive, not deterrent,
to bardic thoughts a knight that’s errant.
So he revised Tom’s masterpiece
as if it were a plaster piece
he cast in bronze in shapely bundles,
with sprightly spondees, dancing dactyls,
trying to ameliorate
the words of T. S. Eliot.

Contrast  bamidbar, which continues
words in Shemot, the book of Exodus,
a sequel whose words are like sinews
that move word-limbs the Torah texted us,
about how in a wasteland, Jews
lived forty years, anticipating
the exile era ‘ere Israel renews
its right to freedom which it’s restating.

Num. 1:1 states:
וַיְדַבֵּר ה’ אֶל מֹשֶׁה בְּמִדְבַּר סִינַי בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי בַּשָּׁנָה הַשֵּׁנִית לְצֵאתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִםThe LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt

The mishkan had been erected in the first month according to Exod. 40:17:

וַיְהִ֞י בַּחֹ֧דֶשׁ הָרִאשׁ֛וֹן בַּשָּׁנָ֥ה הַשֵּׁנִ֖ית בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֑דֶשׁ הוּקַ֖ם הַמִּשְׁכָּֽן׃
In the first month of the second year, on the first of the month, the Tabernacle was set up.

In  “The Message of the Non-Chronological Opening of Numbers,” thetorah.com, Jonathan Grossman points out that the Book of Numbers’ description of the journey  of the Israelites in the wilderness follows that of the construction of the tabernacle in Exodus.

I imply in my poem that the  way that bamidbar follows shemot makes it a mishneh Torah, repetition of the Torah, in the same way that the Book of  Deuteronomy’s description of the exodus, the Sinai theophany and the laws described in Exodus and Leviticus make this fifth book of the Torah a mishneh Torah repetition of the Torah.

The haftarah to the sidra of bamidbar, which is commonly  read before Shavuot, is well analyzed in thetorah.com by  Tamara Cohn Eskenazi in “Hosea’s Abusive Marital Metaphor Ends with Courtship, Not Violence”:

https://www.thetorah.com/article/hoseas-abusive-marital-metaphor-ends-with-courtship-not-violence#:~:text=courtship%2Dnot%2Dviolence-

 We read in Hos.  2:16-17:

לָכֵ֗ן הִנֵּ֤ה אָנֹכִי֙ מְפַתֶּ֔יהָ וְהֹלַכְתִּ֖יהָ הַמִּדְבָּ֑ר וְדִבַּרְתִּ֖י עַל־לִבָּֽהּ׃
Assuredly, I will speak coaxingly to her And lead her through hamidbar,  the wilderness,
And speak to her tenderly.
וְנָתַ֨תִּי לָ֤הּ אֶת־כְּרָמֶ֙יהָ֙ מִשָּׁ֔ם וְאֶת־עֵ֥מֶק עָכ֖וֹר לְפֶ֣תַח תִּקְוָ֑ה וְעָ֤נְתָה שָּׁ֙מָּה֙ כִּימֵ֣י נְעוּרֶ֔יהָ וּכְי֖וֹם עֲלוֹתָ֥הּמֵאֶרֶץ־מִצְרָֽיִם׃
And I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a plowland of hope.  Ve’anta, and there she shall respond, as in the days of her youth, When she came up from the land of Egypt.

The haftarah we read for the sidra of Bamidbar before Shavuot anticipates that Israel will again respond to God as they did on Shavuot, when they received the Ten Commandments,  containing the words הַמִּדְבָּ֑ר and  וְעָ֤נְתָה  The words הַמִּדְבָּ֑ר וְדִבַּרְתִּ֖יעַל־לִבָּֽהּ׃ contain a wordplay on הַמִּדְבָּ֑ר, anticipating T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land.”