Beverly Monestier

Ain Musa (Spring of Moses)

Northwestern Jordan

Pride has been building
an altar here,
taking up collection,
since prophets first turned stones to streams,
as stubbornly as earth tones cling to Judean hills,
the way bodies refuse to go under
in a sea that's been dead for millennia,
sediment penetrating three levels of being,
minerals unwilling to wash out,
like cursed spots on guilty hands,
or stains on a sheet you try to hide
while the whole village looks to frame it.

We touch the rock that Moses struck,
stare at the oasis
that makes promised land disappear
behind ingratitude's shadow,
watch our names fade from claims to home.

Feel our hearts now become fossil clams
the Bedouin sells from a basket on Mt. Nebo,
proof that the magic of the elements
and a current of sorrow
have recorded everything here
since time began.

 

Poem first appeared in Chautauqua Literary Journal