What did Moses think when he saw the burning

bush? Awe exploded in his heart; mystery flared

in his soul, but what did he think? Did he wonder:

Why me? Or did he dress himself in reflected

brilliance? I deserve this glory. I am called to be

        the savior.

The rabbis teach that he was a humble man,

a stutterer, who, like Jonah, might have wished

a whale to swallow him and bear him out

to sea, but he was desert-bound, stranger

to deep waters. A man, they say, of duty, inked

into the pages of history to free his people

even when he was caged in doubt, striking

the stone when he could not woo

        the water.

What would it take for me to believe

in miracles? I scavenge the quotidian

for unbroken shells of divinity. If a parking space

if my mother lives... Where is the magic

in circling the block, in rejection, in silence,

        in death?

And yet, two blocks later, a parking lot

appears, my daughter texts a sequence of stunning

lightning strikes and sunsets, a stranger

buys my book. My mother dies.

Moses could not enter the promised land,

but he wrote his final words gazing

upon its milk and honey valleys,

knowing, at last, he did what he could

and God, yes, God was

        with him.