Working Our Way Back Home

I wandered for 40 years in the desert with Moses
and Aaron. At the starkest places, where there was no manna,
we would stop and play softball. The Queen of Sheba
was our pitcher. She fed me slow balls so I could get
good hits. If I didn't smack a home run, she'd let me hit
again from whatever base I'd achieved until I worked

my way home. When her white arm flashed in the sun
of each pitch, her seven veils floated like butterflies
in a breeze that crawled down from the slopes
of Jehovah-jirah, out of the land of Moriah,
to wet our hot faces with cool tears..

This poem appeared in the March 2004 IPA Newsletter.