(77) May 11, 2010: Promised Land

PROMISED LAND

Here in the basket like Moses in Egypt,
   a life papyritious about to begin,
There on the shore stepping into the river
   a princessly maiden with fairest of skin,

Bathing and beautiful, muse for the boy
   who oblivious floats toward a fate unforeseen;
Orphaned elusively, swaddled in secrecy,
   soon to be son of Hatshepsut the Queen.

Who is Hatshepsut, and who is this Moses,
   and what is this river of fate called the Nile?
Let me be Moses, and you be Hatshepsut,
   and let’s call the river the Digital File.

Out of the river and into the desert
   to wander my people for forty long years;
Never to step into Canaan’s immensity
   seen from the mountain through penitent tears.

Where is this desert and who are my people
   and why must I stand on a mountain and grieve?
Speech is my desert, and Words are my people;
   projecting my voice toward a future I leave

Up in the air and down for the count where there’s
   more of the Mystery and less of the Truth,
Where all the King’s horses and all the King’s men
   have drowned in their visions unschooled and uncouth.

Dying on Nebo, old Moses was shown just a
   glimpse of the world he would never command.
This is my moment of seeing the future
   and knowing for me there is no Promised Land.

D. Edgar Lamp

www.TheDailyPoem.org
Rhyming Couplets