POEM #3: The Burning Bush

(Or: Moses' Lost Daughter)

Dear one, I've been climbing these rocks

A long, long time—every day getting closer to the sun

Every day, to my own burning heart.

It's taken a long time—longer than you'd guess, I think,

But my heart is opening, finally,

Like a gigantic sunflower on a hill of warm stone.

So much has fallen away—I can scarcely remember

How it is I got here, or why, exactly,

I have to keep on climbing this way,

But looking down from my sunlit, empty place in life

I can finally see you, beloved daughter,

Whom I never would have left behind.

From a height of twenty-five, maybe twenty-six

Thousand feet, there you are on the seashore,

So beautiful in your tangled mess of black hair.

The sea is dark blue, the corals white as milk.

Everything is sparkling in the sun, everything so fresh,

So new at the dawn of the world—and you alone,

Lost among all the little creatures below, are crying for me,

Losing your voice in the crashing waves.