The Acacia Tree of Acts (Shittah)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Reverend Goss stood at the pulpit on May 15th, 2023,
holding a sliver of acacia from his desk drawer,
insisting on Shittah, the Hebrew sharp in his mouth.
He said, Moses at Sinai, 13th century BCE,
commanded the ark from this wood,
Exodus 25:10, two and a half cubits long.
I touched the splinter, felt the tight grain,
resinous under my fingernail, like gum from Acacia seyal.

[Chorus]
Shittah, you grew in the dust of Mount Sinai,
thorns hollow with Crematogaster ants,
swarming the hands that cut you.
Your sap smells of earth and faint honey,
in the midday heat, 38 degrees Celsius,
early morning harvest at 20, before the sun bites.
Ark of the Covenant, overlaid in gold,
but your wood held the law.

[Verse 2]
Pemba listened, his robe fuchsia against the chapel stone,
but Goss waved the Bible, King James 1611,
shittim wood, not acacia, he corrected twice.
I imagined the adze in a craftsman's grip,
nameless worker, calluses splitting on thorns,
ant bites red on his wrists, no mention in the text.
The ark carried through desert, your planks unyielding.

[Bridge]
Who were you, cutter of Shittah?
Did the resin stick to your palms,
smell lingering at dusk?
Nomads trading branches, faces lost to sand.
Goss insists on the name, but I see the tree,
alive, before the blade.

[Verse 3]
In our yard, no acacia, but I press a leaf in my notebook,
like the pussywillow from last spring.
Shittah, you fed the tabernacle,
durable against insects, your gums a quiet glue.
Moses, 80 years old, voice from the mountain,
and you, wood, silent witness.

[Outro]
Shittah, Shittah, in the ark's shadow.