"A Slave's Life"  

EXODUS POEMS by DOUG TANOURY

CONTENTS (links to individual poems)

"Up on Sinai"
"Molten Calf"
"Blue & Purple & Scarlet Stuff"
"Cherubim Skillfully Worked"
"A Slave's Life"
"Burnt Offering"
"Favor In My Sight"
"The Red Sea Between Us"
"The Pharaoh of My Past"
"The Finger Of God"
"My Brother Aaron"
"The Moses Soliloquy"

They say go and I go
They say do this and I do it
They say gather and I gather
They say sow and I sow
For I am but a common slave and
They a cruel and capricious master
 
Who cares nothing if I live or die
For my daughters are like sheep and goats
And my sons like camels and oxen
All my children in the fields
Are bent by this burden
And bear the rod of the taskmaster  

And at night by the fires
Amid the smoke from the smoldering pots
I pray to the Lord who is my freedom
And my deliverance
Whose reach is greater than the Nile
And whose bounty flows more freely

"Burnt Offering"  

EXODUS POEMS by DOUG TANOURY

CONTENTS (links to individual poems)

"Up on Sinai"
"Molten Calf"
"Blue & Purple & Scarlet Stuff"
"Cherubim Skillfully Worked"
"A Slave's Life"
"Burnt Offering"
"Favor In My Sight"
"The Red Sea Between Us"
"The Pharaoh of My Past"
"The Finger Of God"
"My Brother Aaron"
"The Moses Soliloquy"

And it is with great haste
I come to her from the altar
Fresh from the sacrifice of atonement
Still in priestly robes
Splattered with ram's blood
My face smudged with ashes
 
When my robes fall away
I wear only the smell of olive oil
And incense before her and
She wears only a perfume
As our scents mingle and our
Fragrances intertwine
 
And our clothes left lying
In heaps on the floor
Are the skins shed by serpents
And the discarded shells of insects
That are cast off when
They take on new forms

"Favor In My Sight"  

EXODUS POEMS by DOUG TANOURY

CONTENTS (links to individual poems)

"Up on Sinai"
"Molten Calf"
"Blue & Purple & Scarlet Stuff"
"Cherubim Skillfully Worked"
"A Slave's Life"
"Burnt Offering"
"Favor In My Sight"
"The Red Sea Between Us"
"The Pharaoh of My Past"
"The Finger Of God"
"My Brother Aaron"
"The Moses Soliloquy"

They sat that Moses found such favor
That God knew him by name and when they met
It was face to face and when they talked
It was like as two friends
 
He talked often of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
As if every word spoken between them were craven in stone
And He remembered His promises
As if they were made just today
 
And I have often wondered
That if I like Moses met the Lord what I would say
But I have come to reflect much more now
On what words He might speak to me
 
Would He recall His talks with Moses
And remember the face of Pharaoh or experience them
As if in present time for tense has no meaning
For that which stands outside of time
 
For He Led the twelve tribes of Israel
Through the wilderness moments ago
And in the tent of meeting He speaks
To Moses at this moment
 
And now God is parting the curtains of blue and
Purple and scarlet stuff to watch the sun setting
Beyond the mountain and both He and Moses
Marvel at a desert sunset
 
And I know too that if I met the Lord
Like Moses I would hang on His every word
As if they were raindrops in the desert
And I would whisper only one thing to Him
 
Remember Me

"The Red Sea Between Us"  

EXODUS POEMS by DOUG TANOURY

CONTENTS (links to individual poems)

"Up on Sinai"
"Molten Calf"
"Blue & Purple & Scarlet Stuff"
"Cherubim Skillfully Worked"
"A Slave's Life"
"Burnt Offering"
"Favor In My Sight"
"The Red Sea Between Us"
"The Pharaoh of My Past"
"The Finger Of God"
"My Brother Aaron"
"The Moses Soliloquy"

And something has allowed me
To get from there to here
Some miracle of passage
Some magic that has parted the sea
Between us and carved a dry path
From among the waves and formed
A wall of water on my right
And on my left
 
And the power of Pharaoh behind me
Is washed away and I Am has delivered me
On this distant shore
My old life fades from memory
Like a dream that is only half-remembered
And seems unreal and somehow
Unattached from me as if I were born anew
This very moment