Your Gods O Israel/bamidbar - Poem

Judaism, Fall, 2002 by Rodger Kamenetz

Your Gods O Israel/bamidbar

   Moses on high, his people having danced the dance
   of wanting to see the god who led them
   out into the harsh, odd, bright, fearful
   fatherless, motherless, child forsaking waste--
   called wilderness, freedom, emptiness, or--some say
   "in the word", the bite of the word that drove them
   out of meat and into starving nothing--
   asked to see the face, saw nothing.

   So delayed while Israel danced below
   around the golden bovine face still molten.
   "These are your gods O Israel," Aaron said. Gods.

   For in the shiny bovine mirror,
   each one saw only his own need.

RODGER KAMENETZ is poetry editor of Forward. His books of poetry include The Missing Jew (1992) and Stuck (1995). He lives in New Orleans. Other books: The Jew in the Lotus, Stalking Elijah, Terra Infirma. His poems were published in the Winter 2002 issue.