Philip Dacey

PSALM FOR FAY

"Dad, my dream is to marry a matador in Ireland and have a big Jewish wedding."       Behold, beside the waters of the River Liffey, I will give my daughter away as I wave a red cape at the groom.       Whereupon shall a bull lie down like a lamb amongst us, under the four-cornered indoor sky of our silken chuppah, his sweet and warm breath more powerful, yea, more appealing than incense, and his eyes as black as the blood pudding served for breakfast in the modest and welcoming homes of Westport, County Mayo.       Verily, the ghost of Fay's great-grandfather Owen McGinn, havin- come directly from his childhood home and current haunt, Cavan, and looking like Yahweh Himself, will usher astonished guests to their seats.       For I have seen the guest list, Lord, and it includes Leopold Bloom, who shall sing a song in praise of his wife, declaring her to be zaftig, and one for Woman herself, selected parts of Whom he will with great reverence name. Selah.       Blessed be the klezmer band and the musicians from Madrid's plaza de la corrida, united for this day, who will play what sounds like a cross between "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon," as interpreted by Sammy Cahn, and "Pasodoble," the toreadors' grand entrance march.       With gladness and rejoicing shall we jig, execute a veronica, or link arms and dance the hora around the Ark of the Covenant, here represented by a wedding cake in the shape of Yeats' tower at Ballylee.       As we do so, mark, ye Wasps, how we kick loose from our shoes sand from Tel Aviv, each grain the eye of history looking straight at you; industrial dust from the streets of Cork; and Andalusian clay, walked on by Lorca and still dreaming his dreams, like this wedding, born of a Minnesota woman impregnated by a cosmic wind.       Therefore shall I take from my pocket, like a matador sliding a sword from its sheath, a handkerchief of one hundred per cent Irish linen and give it to the bride and groom to hold between their hands as they circle each other.       For the harp of Israel and the harp of the green isle shall be one.       As enthusiastically as townspeople carried Manolete in triuniph through the squares of Cordoba and as easily as Buck Mullligan raised his bowl of lather in mockery of the sacred Host to begin the etemity of June 16, 1904, will eight banderilleros lift the bride and groom upon two chairs and sway them with tender mercies above the heads of the applauding congregation to the measures of "The Lass of Aughrim."       Let the glass goblet from which the bride and croom drink brim with Guinness, its lacy foam as pure as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, and the groom stomp on the glass as the rabbi shouts, "Ole!" and "Slainte!"       Let the moment of truth upon this occasion be the taking of identical vows which, like sword blades flashing at five o'clock in the afternoon, doubly pierce the hearts of all fathers present.       And let Molly Bloom, even if she should arrive late and out of breath in a rush after concluding some necessary and herein tactfully unnamed business in Dublin, interpret, at least for her own purposes, the resounding, "Amen" not as "So be it," which confinns the past, but as "Yes," which declares--as tables laden with steaming kosher corned beef and paella wait in the antechamber--an appetite for the future.