Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

GODMAKERS
I, Moishe, who by the sweat of my beard
these tablets carved, have been alone for weeks
with wind on mountaintop, a quarrier,
stonecutter, and, as I learned at Thebes,
inscriber of laws for the silent god.
No one speaks to me; not even thunder
can tap the shalts and shalt nots
on flat-face basalt: it is my sense
that tells me a decalogue, a single god,
a unity instead of the carnival host of Egypt,
a simple law to lead men to virtue,
a single god to lead them
to a time beyond all gods,
the age when every man is Moishe.
One day a better one shall climb
this lifeless crag, summon the gods,
and one by one the hoary ones,
yea, even Jahweh, will gather here.
Upon the bloody plain of Canaan
the gods shall justify their ways
to man, and man shall judge them.