PESACH – PASSAGE, 1i

Pesach – Passage,  1

This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, come and eat! All in need, come and join in celebrating Pesach!
This year we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel!
This year we are slaves, next year we will be free men!
                                                – Haggadah, Gerald Garouste, Marc-Alain Ouaknin

After we were passed over
we passed over.

When the waters split
drew back
a shimmering wall rose
seething strength, waves
smacking, spitting above us.

Some of us hesitated –
to weigh the odds
consider and debate.
Was it more magic?
Who was this son of Abraham
with his stave of almond wood?

Crippled from scrabbling straw in the fields
mixing mortar for the man
meeting his cruel quotas
we dawdled on the shore.

Others, children, especially, ran out
skipping over the coral
through the sea grass
past the shipwrecks
and green turtles
raising their mottled beaks, amazed.

We heard hooves pounding,
shouts, thunder of chariot wheels.
Death before, death behind.
Better to drown
than die by the hands of those bastards.

The kids, though,
did not flinch,
tossing up fistfuls of sand,
diamonds in the sun,
playing on the seabed
like shrimp.

We hobbled over,
leaning on each other,
fearful, fretting.
Seems when a soul is crushed
it takes a long time to rinse out the slave.

Though at Pesach, when we gathered,
it would all come back.
We would shake off another chain
see more clearly, sip
liberty like wine.

Mural from American Visionary Arts Museum, Baltimore, MD

This is a slightly altered poem from an earlier series of lenten poems I wrote called, Love in Small Doses.  Pesach, or Pasach, also spelled Pascha  is Hebrew for Passover or passage. The verbal form means to protect and to have compassion as well as pass over. Exodus 12 -14; John 14-19