Two Poems About Exodus 14

The Morning After Crossing the Red Sea

After a night of no sleep, the longest night of our lives –
did this really happen to us? No one walks through the sea and lives;
and yet, here we are, on the other side, no longer night,
no longer last night when the unstoppable power approached us,
on the other side, and the unstoppable army is washed up on the shore.

In the night, in the dark, in the confusion – did this really happen?
And yet it must have, for now it is morning and light and calm,
and we are on the other side of the sea, and safe and alive,
and our enemies, the unstoppable power, are now just bodies,
harmless on the edge of the sea.

Should we thank God for this? For surely we are safe now,
after knowing for certain that we were all dead; and yet, and yet,
yesterday we left, on the other side of the sea,
the comforting possibility that maybe there is no God.
What else did we leave there? It is too soon to know,
for this is just the first morning of our new world,
and we pray this unseen and unnamed God will be patient with us,
as we learn to walk again in these new skins and these new bones.

Tel Aviv, 2008

Crossing the Reed Sea

What if Israel escaped Egypt through the Reed Sea?

A marshy, muddy mess, that you can walk through,
Perhaps carrying a change of clothes and a little food,
And no more.
Watch out for snakes.
You might lose a shoe.

But if you are trying to carry the spoils of Egypt,
You’ll eventually face a choice:
Abandon those riches, or get stuck, and left behind.

The pursuing soldiers, with their armor and weapons,
Will never abandon them, their sources and symbols of power,
And the rag-tag Israelites will manage to outrun them.

Later, we will conflate this little miracle into a big one,
In which God parts the sea and drowns the enemy,
And the enemy goes along with that story;
It’s less humiliating than being outrun in the swamp.

But isn’t escaping slavery by a simple choice,
Just forgoing wealth and power
A far more wonderful miracle?

May 2023