VAYYIGASH

The Egyptian capital was still that day
Save for the soft administrative hum,
The streets in hieratical array
Laid out rigid as mummies, as the numb
Beast-gods senseless of how two men of might
Met there: Yosef, through this world’s trials unbent,
Yehudah who, owning another’s right,
Earned the high crown of acknowledgment.
In the great hall Pharaoh was seated high
Atop his courtiers’ pyramid of power,
When from the viceroy’s chambers swelled a cry,
A human cry of joy and grief that tore
The silence of that land.
                                        What did they hear?
Did they at all divine what had drawn near?