In Shushan’s palace, where the cedars weep
Resin like tears of amber in the sun,
And marble veins pulse gold beneath the feet
Of satraps bowed in silk and unison—
There dwelt a queen, fair Esther, orphaned rose,
Plucked from the ashes of a captive kin,
Her beauty veiled in mystery’s heavy cloak,
A star concealed in Xerxes’ diadem.
The king, upon his throne of ivory carved
With lions rampant, gems like frozen fire,
Held court amid the incense-clouded air,
Where harps sighed soft and eunuchs never tire.
His scepter, tipped with gold from Ophir’s mine,
Lay heavy as the edicts of his will;
To enter unannounced was death’s design,
A shadow falling swift on palace hill.
Yet Haman’s plot, that venomous decree,
Sealed doom for Mordecai’s unbowed race—
The Jews, her people, scattered like the sea
Before the storm of pride’s unholy grace.
In chambers hung with tapestries of blue,
Where fountains whispered secrets to the night,
Esther fasted, clad in sackcloth’s ashen hue,
Her heart a forge where courage burned bright.
“For such a time as this,” her cousin spake,
Through veils of peril, words like thunder rolled;
The throne room loomed, a dragon’s golden wake,
Where one false step could shatter souls of old.
She rose at dawn, in royal robes arrayed—
Purple of Tyre, embroidered with the vine,
Pearls from the deep like tears unshed cascade,
Her crown a halo forged in fear divine.
The halls unfurled like scrolls of ancient lore,
Pillars of alabaster, tall and stern,
Guarded by spears that gleamed on checkered floor,
Where eunuchs parted like a silent fern.
Her steps echoed soft on jaspers veined with red,
A heartbeat drumming ‘gainst the throne’s decree;
The courtiers gasped, the air grew thick with dread—
Unsummoned queen, what folly this might be?
Before the king she bowed, a lily bent
In tempest’s breath, her eyes like midnight pools;
His gaze, once fierce as eagles’ fierce ascent,
Now softened at her grace amid the jewels.
“If I have found favor in your sight, O king,”
She whispered, voice a harp-string finely tuned,
“Come feast with me, and let the truth take wing—
For death’s own shadow in my blood is crooned.”
The scepter rose, extended like a bridge
Of mercy o’er the abyss of royal ire;
Gold touched her hand, a spark on fiery ridge,
And life bloomed fresh from peril’s funeral pyre.
At banquets twain, ‘mid wines from Helbon’s vine,
She unveiled the serpent in the grass—
Haman unmasked, his gallows his design,
Swung high for pride’s eternal, bitter mass.
Thus courage crowned her, in that hour divine,
A queen who breached the veil for kith and kin;
The king’s edict reversed, like stars align,
And Purim’s joy from sorrow’s depths begin.
In Persia’s annals, etched in lapis stone,
Her name endures—a beacon ‘gainst the throne
Of tyranny, where faith and valor shone
For such a time as this, forever known.
