Alfred Corn

The blessing safely lifted onto Joshua’s shoulders, Moses climbed up Mount Nebo, high above Moab. Tendons winced as he bent to retie a sandal, and haze flooded his vision, which had nothing to see (or black rock and scrub thorn only) until he stopped and said, I will wait here for the voice of the Most High. You showed him all the land— Gilead, the hills of Ephraim and Manasseh, from Judah to the western sea as far as Zoar. And said: Your eyes have seen what I promised, yet, because at Meribah-Kadesh you failed to manifest the holiness I am, you do not go in. At that distance and from the heights Moses stood and watched as the children of Israel began the westward trek. His sight strengthened and he saw each one. The mother, thin and staring, bent down to take her firstborn’s hand, who cried and then laughed. The young brothers with new beards and faces blackened by years in Sinai, strode along carrying all they had rolled up in a sheepskin. The white-haired elder and his mourning wife, whose only daughter was lost in the desert, stalked slowly forward without speaking. An orphaned girl, her cousin, and her cousin’s husband discussed it quietly and held hands. A concert of voices, murmurs, cries, laughter, rising, falling, babbling like water, the fountain of Meribah-Kadesh that sprang from a wall of rock in the desert when Moses struck it with his staff. Days of his life returned to him. One last time he saw Miriam’s serious gaze during the hours of instruction. He recalled the harp players in Pharaoh’s summer palace; white noonday and the shadow of his hand raised to strike the Egyptian overseer; Zipporah’s fear and trust when Jethro urged her forward; the brush-tree that spoke out in tongues of fire; Egypt’s plagues; blood on the doorposts for a sign; the exiles’ safe conduct across marshlands among bulrushes as seabirds called overhead; mutiny and lightning in the desert; a pillar of smoke by day, and fire by night. The moment drew near as those he was bound to and had contended with went up to a land of hills dusted with the first spring green. Sheep stopped their grazing to stare; like an intake of breath, a lull suspended the low hum hovering around hillsides in flower. His eyes filled with tears. And silver bands of sun broke from a veil of cloud overhead down to the plain of Moab, lighting the face of Joshua on one side, so that half remained in shadow. At that moment Moses was taken to his people. His body is said to be buried at Beth-Peor, yet the grave has never been found. The grave has never been found— and Joshua led the Israelites westward into Canaan.

My body, laid out on a marble slab. Naked but for a linen sheet tucked under Its chin, as though to keep the patient warm. A solemn band approached; identified The late departed with what looked like mingled Relief, mild satisfaction, and bereavement. One of them took away an arm—the right, Was it?—and loped off with a spring in his step. Which prompted others to do likewise: here A shoulder (suitable for crying on), there a foot, there an eye and there an ear. Plump already, one scooped out the belly. Just who you’d imagine claimed the head. Not the one I hoped tugged loose a rib. Some, by no means all, I knew as friends; But felt no bitterness, instead, acceptance. This, while watching their several withdrawals, Travelers moving farther out and deeper Into the ringing distance—who all began To flourish, somehow more intently themselves Than they had earlier resolved to be. Was glad of that, despite a fit of shivers (Simple human nature still presiding) When I took note of the rummage that remained, Wishing a greener plot had been marked out For what had breathed with so much spark and promise. My turn, then, to come forward for a closer Look; and, since no one else had carried off That steady, flexibly strung pump at rest Beneath the sternum, take it for my own, Sensing its mute but anchored trust that parts Lucky for others would befriend as well— Oh love —even the heir that flesh once named.

The flexible arc described by treetop leaves when breathing currents ripple a branch to one, then the other side. Or the level, quickened swell that follows a gust over wetlands home to a million reeds. Any terrain you find arises from all that came before: succeeding event horizons from earlier eras brought forward by today's considered impetus to lift the way it looks, lightly, freely out toward whatever senses you are there— breathed into completion, a sphere, into all it is.