The Parting

The Parting Exodus 14 We stand sweating and thirsty by the shore At the setting of Ra A setting we’ve always anticipated Bringing a glimpse of beauty to each day of toil Beauty now eclipsed by a plumage of fire Baking our scarred backs Reflected heat scorching past us To turn the red waters aflame Red mixing with yellow Glistening and churning What Gehenna must look like For it was the beginning of the end when Moses came Since his God awakened from prolonged slumber Awakened no doubt by the prayers of devout widows Widows who still believe the stories about Joseph And safe-keep his bones But there’s no denying recent events I thought we hated the Egyptians But not compared to Moses’s God And now what’s left of them are here We hear their horses neighing, their muffled screams of insults and threats All brought here by the same whirlwind of destiny That besets us both And now it is night The reds and the yellows fade to black Vibrant colors swept away by wind And such a wind Spraying the salt into our faces Immersing us, maddening us further with thirst Hour after hour after cursed hour Ra returns at last Revealing a scene we will never forget We face a gauntlet of dry ground The sea blown aside by relentless gales The ground covered with clinging seaweed, craggy rocks, and freshly-dead fish Shrieking seagulls are feasting and swarming like locusts Holy smoke it is impressive We stand agape for a moment Then into this valley the old step first Slow progress, stumbling, dodging, climbing Walking through collateral damage Frequently looking back Expecting to be overrun by our oppressors Ra sets again We all have crossed We turn and face the sea, now filling again Swirling with them, horses and men Gasping for air, dying one by one Our tears unexpectedly cover the ground Mourning a common humanity, a shared sorrow And we feel again the heat on our backs Heat from the endless desert, from an unknown fate But O God Still we thirst