I stand atop Mount Nebo, looking
beyond the river, my right hand grasping 
a discarded branch
whittled, sanded, lacquered by a 
nameless servant employed by my wife’s father
Jethro, priest of Midian.
You are the curved scepter of a shepherd prince.
often I have raised, pointed and waved you to 
direct wooly brains and hooved footprints,
generations of rams, ewes and
wandering lambs.  
We have been friends for a very long time.
I stand atop Mount Nebo, resting
my old, leathery hands upon your head
remembering the burning bush
the shoeless conversation with a voice
a god self-identified only as I AM.
He knew my name and proceeded to
detail a non-negotiable, impossible to imagine future
for my family
for myself
for a congregation of slaves.
He asked about you, old friend,
“What is that in your hand?” as if He
did not already know.
“Throw it down!”
I obeyed
then you came to life
no longer a shepherd’s staff
but a serpent,
undulating, hissing.
“Reach out your hand, grab it.”
I did
then you became you once again.

I sit atop Mount Nebo, you the wooden sword
that devoured pagan snakes and pierced
the heart of the Nile river 
until it bled.
Did all this really happen?
Was that me, I mean us?
A man holding a stick of wood
threatening a king on behalf of a God
who chooses to be heard 
but not seen?
We walk together down the side of Mount Nebo.
So many marvels have filled our lives: the sea 
that became dry
the exodus of a million souls
a great nation wandering forty years
until we found ourselves here.
I could just hand you off to young Joshua;
then at least one of us would enter 
the Promised Land.
I am leaving soon, old friend
I have chosen to take you with me
to an unmarked grave
where none but Yahweh
the One True God
will ever find us.

My father, born in Mexico moving
half a childhood later to America
and growing up mostly fatherless
like a tumbleweed pushing against
a chain link fence eager to
move on but trapped
between three worlds:
The world of his father to the east
in Arizona where letters to white Irish American
half-sisters would do a U-Turn
unopened, unread;
The world of his birthplace to the south
in Tijuana, where nine Mexican siblings
from another father knew little of their
pale brown half-brother;
The world of his mother, north of the border
somewhere in the desert,
he a six-year old immigrant boy
living alone with her in a dirt floor house
guests of a native California tribe
that welcomed refugees.
After high school my father the tumbleweed
climbed over the fence by joining the American army
yet he remained trapped,
fenced in by memories of a father who had no ambitions
for a bastard son except that he
“Go to work at the post office and be happy.”