The Thoughts Of an Undocumented Hebrew Slave

---------------/Thoughts Of an Undocumented Hebrew Slave

What do you do when your whole life feels like chasing...Running
after some goal some ideal squelched by those that oppress you
with whips and harsh language of despair disparaging this always
unattainable always distant fanciful thought of a freed life, abounding in joy chained...to the completion of someone's dream someone else's callous
unfeeling pyramid? Laughed to scorn by men with putrid breath rotted teeth perverted minds ogle eyeing your daughters when all you can do to curb
your overabundance of tears is stare at the full moon in the cloudless sky
imagining food not maggot infested bread, drink not dung and horse piss
mingled water national pride not bearing witness to future generations
of your boys your sons servile in both body and spirit to adverse conditions
sulking every where they walk, cringing at the footsteps of the Egyptians.
So when plagues come you dont flinch because yours is a plagued existence
So when locusts invade the land you yawn because your dignity was
invaded and pillaged long ago, and when the firstborn son of Pharaoh dies
you smile....
because his baleful taskmasters killed your firstborn and secondborn sons
a long while ago allowing those that live to be perpetually maimed.
So when emancipation comes
knocking as the angel of death singularly focused
you dont ask questions you flee towards the sea of redemption and newness
clasping fingers of your sister, your mother before this anticipation
calls your bluff and dissipates like every other one of your good dreams
gone awry, hoping to cross to the side of Golden Opportunity, if not
to at least have died washing the stench of slavery off your cadaver. But
in truth you hope to close your eyes when given the opportunity and walk across the Red Sea as dry land...away from here.
And when all is finished to turn around and look back snarling
at the piles of dead Egyptian bodies, those psychoses of Israelite
pessimism and unshakeable angst
piled up on the shores of your past...forever

(haunting your chronology, memories no more)


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Exodus 14:24-31
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord[ fighteth for them against the Egyptians. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.