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"In Miracles" by Elya Braden

In Miracles

In Miracles
In Miracles
In Miracles
In Miracles
In Miracles

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

opens now, I will know that God is with me. If

my poem is accepted...if my daughter calls...

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.

Elya Braden

Elya Braden took a long detour from her creative endeavors to pursue an eighteen-year career as a corporate lawyer and entrepreneur. She is now a writer and mixed-media artist living in Channel Islands Harbor in Ventura County, CA, and is Assistant Editor of Gyroscope Review. Her work has been published in Calyx, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Prometheus Dreaming, Rattle Poets Respond, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, The Coachella Review and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have received several Best of the Net nominations. Her chapbook, Open The Fist, was released in 2020 by Finishing Line Press. You can find her online at www.elyabraden.com.

 

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