Exodus
Veritable years spent watching a seance of clouds spark on the open horizon, we have been traveling, turning the corner the darkness bares its teeth, for us there is no simple explanation, we are waiting, waiting upon the pauseless future, a voyage without names, a strong baptism of birth without birthright, we do not belong, our simple hearts rise in the wind, full of strong blood; we people the silence, march on the land, we have returned without ever having said where we would go when winter forced us from our homes, now a flood has begun, full-force against the night, we sit and watch as the sky fills with grief, our God is the star that is pregnant with our destination, speaking no evil, only the satisfied perigrination of the one place we cannot hide.
Reprinted by kind permission of the Regents of the University of California,
Bancroft Library, Berkeley. Gift of Diane Walker Murray