With thy staff and robes came a princely Jew,
a prophet, a Levite son in exile;
for out of the blood and sweat of sinew
did that journey begin on the blue Nile.
Who brought to bear God’s will this land upon
for cursed he Egypt in the desert sand,
and forty years wandered in freedom won
into the covenant land of Canaan.
Born of the Israelites that Hebrew slave
led the twelve tribes in great exodus home,
and from Horeb brought down in God’s engrave
Ten Commandments upon tablets of stone.
Out of the valleys to Pisgah he trod -
great lawgiver and judge and voice of God.
Written: March 1995
And I
From the Nebo of my knees
Searched earth, sea and sky
In vain
For what I need I already was
And what I am to be I am
Creature of his hands
He who is
And never was
And never can be to be
For his eternity
Is one now
One absolute moment
That consumes me
Into his omnipresence
Where existence
Has no plurality
For what is absolute
Must exist
Essential and only truth
Infinite
And beyond me
The finite understanding falling
For worship at his feet.
And I
From the Pisgah of my faith
Comprehend fragments
Of manifestations
Emboweled in the eternal omnipresence
Of the omniscient One.
MOSES
MOSES
A man used to love his flesh made to withstand the caresses of his woman.
Desert dwelling wrapped in clothing of the linen type.
His leather sandals were not chapped or aged. He stood as tall as any tall man
the day he died the angels sang. He had prepared his heart to go he knoes just
where his God takes him to Heaven where there is only love.
MOSES. Note, Those that through grace are well acquainted with another world,
and have been much conversant with it, need not be afraid to leave this.
Moses was indeed at Mont Pisgah. To show that he was willing to die. When he
knew the place of his death, he was so far from avoiding it that he cheerfully
mounted a steep hill to come at it.
MOSES
On trails of tears and paths of sorrow,
Beneath storm cloud, or sunny sky,
“Tomorrow is the rainbow’s end,”
Has ever been my rally cry.
Down roads of disappointment
And highways of despair,
Looking for the dawning
When clouds obscured my guiding star.
But tomorrow is a phantom,
Always a dream away.
A pot of gold beyond my reach;
And yet I seek that brighter day.
So on this lofty mountaintop
Of here and now, I am.
I view my promised Canaan,
But may not enter in.
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