Do Bushes Burn in the Desert of Sinai?
Is it a regular sight, spontaneous combustion in the shimmering heat?
Still, Moses could not have been anointed in any other way—
a fiery baptism on a God’s Mountain and
a shepherd in an arid land, standing in bare feet.
Anything less would not focus our attention.
In our peripheral vision, we can almost see
the wizard behind the parted curtain.
Moses is curious and turns aside to look.
God pivots fast: Psst, Moses, Moses, over here!
The curtain is hastily closed. The illusion is saved.
The scribes laugh quietly amongst themselves,
taking a welcome break from their labors.
It is painstaking work. Every bit is carefully scripted.
The Mosaic team gave birth to this extraordinary child,
raised him, tested him, and presented him to the king
for his approval—Israel’s hero in the nick of time.
Ma Chère Amie
I have a friend with many friends.
The Nazis occupied her country
when she was a little girl
her father could not
preach against them in his church
her family was split up for five years.
When she was 75
she survived cancer
her husband is gone
her grandchildren are grown
she lives alone in an apartment.
At 95 she still travels by train and plane
takes cabs to hear jazz and blues
in an old DC church
protested against racism in a thunderstorm
and called it “glorious.”
She speaks four languages
she loves everyone
she loves our world
she loves God
she even loves me.
To finish the sentence When I get to heaven…
she sent “Recipe for Happiness Khaborovsk or Anyplace”
and under it she typed “When I get to heaven
I am going to send harmonious and uplifting vibes
to the world.”
I looked everywhere for that quote
where did you find that I asked her
did Ferlinghetti write that too
“No. I did!”
I want to be like her.
The Bedouin
Brewing sugary, sage tea
in spouted tin pots over small fires,
with hobbled camels grazing nearby,
Jordanian Bedouin men come in from the desert,
and gather in red-striped frame tents—
to tell stories, serve tea and sell trinkets and camel rides to tourists.
They wear the red and white Bedouin scarf on their heads,
tied carefully or banded in place
to keep out the wind, sand, cold or heat.
They claim no nation or polity—
the Bedouin are nomads without borders,
living in a land where travel is restricted
and check points must be negotiated.
They are anachronisms, wearing sneakers
beneath long tunics.
In Khan Al-Ahmar, on the edge of the Judean desert,
there are families of Bedouin encamped.
Their women and children are generous, undereducated, unhealthy.
Their long-eared goats eat cardboard out of old trash cans.
Their men meet with Palestinians, journalists
and those with no agenda but kindness.
The Palestinians want them to join the fight against the occupation,
their flag is anchored inside an old tire.
One tire among many.
The Bedouin simply want to live in peace
on land that will not be taken away from them
by sweeping their untidy existence
under their vivid, fringed rugs—as though they had never been.
I Couldn’t Sing Songs to Jesus Anymore
It was the longest
show I ever did,
then one day I was done.
I couldn’t play a holy role,
so I quit and wandered alone.
In Istanbul I flew to Israel
where I rode on a camel’s back,
stood smirking in the Jordan,
in Capernaum I befriended a cat.
I climbed all over Petra’s stones,
faced the wind at the Acropolis,
finally, freezing on Alaska’s ice
I met Death in a plate of fish.
She was just passing through,
she couldn’t stay—
a traveler like me—
she wanted to bring
me home with her
but I was going
a different way.
From Anchorage
to Seattle
to Washington DC
she turned me round
and round. I’d almost
lost the wheel of her
when we came at last to ground.
Rachel M. Clark is a retired educator, actor and poet living in Northern Virginia, teaching English to immigrants and leading a poetry circle at her local library. She has been published in a handful of small journals in the US and the UK.
Image: Abdelaziz fawzy, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
