moses of my own soul

i went to Boston yesterday
my wife loves the city the
beauty of buildings crafted
back when there was craft

boats bounce on the water
next to high rise hotels
no one I know can afford
cold wind as harsh as hell

we spend $70.00 of the little
we have left to survive here
no jobs in sight the low wages
laugh at our need to live

i wake before dawn fear riding
the wings of what brought me here
wondering again at my teneacious
insistence that i am here for a reason

part of me is done, ready for whatever
dimension is next undone by the harsh
nightmarescape of what this culture has
become i make the coffee grateful for it's heat

rural Maine has such harsh beauty i cannot
close my zipper to what surrounds me
i chase another possiblity read the offerings
on Indeed.com hoping to give what i have gathered in a lifetime

one application after another with no response
no one here in this land wants an old woman
to work for them youth is the idol of our idle
time, but depression is not a place to live, nor a way to die

i look around for some sign to keep me going
i hear...stand still and see the salvation of the Lord
wonder where that comes from and find Moses and Israel
with the Eqyptian army behind them waiting for the parting of the red sea

i hold out my tired arms without even a stick to say i am
somebody, a moses of my own soul, waiting with the army
of bill collectors on my tail, laughing that there is a sea
of unknown wilderness in front of me and the glass ceilings of

a life spent used up trying to stand for something i have like
Moses killed the wrong task masters and run from the world 
i don't know why i had to come back here pushed by a voice i
heard in a burning bush my shoes off my heart breaking

quaking with fear i am ready for the plagues, the future
my rucksack packed everything else has been given away
one last stand knowing i am not meant to enter the promised
land, only to know that my children's children will live there

i make a path for them with my tired arms held high
waiting for the impossible knowing it will happen
sure that i am here for a reason tired but not
done yet ready for a new kind of battle a drowned army a people free

Advertisement